AI - Bound
by ARCCaptainFordo
Summary: When an experimental program inducts the members of nanosuit clad soldiers of Raptor Team into conducting anti-terror operations under the command of Control, will they realize that they have unwittingly given the machine its greatest weapons yet? How will this change things for the machine's current assets and administrator?
1. Chapter 1

**Okay ladies and gentlemen, this idea was stuck in my head for like the longest time. I don't know why, but it just was. Alright, now this will also at some point include Criminal Minds, but that'll just be Raptor team and the Criminal Minds chaps, not Finch and Co.**

**Washington DC, Pentagon**

"Explain to me again, what exactly you want."

"Simple, I want one of your special forces teams. For what purpose? Again, very simple, to conduct anti-terror operations."

"You want me to transfer one of my teams? I'm afraid that's their decision."

"No General, they will remain under your jurisdiction, I simply wish to put their talents and their…unique equipment to better use."

General Redrish thought for a moment. With many teams joining Raptor in the Nano Soldier program and with no way to test their capabilities in an urban environment, this was a reasonable decision. After all they would have to get used to the suit, they didn't know how long they would have to live with it. "Alright, I'll put in the necessary paperwork. I'm assigning Raptor team to you, you can be assured, there is nothing that Raptor Team cannot do."

**Flight Lieutenant Sean O'Neil**

O'Neil walked along the deck of the USS Constitution, the JSOC representative's green suit looked very out of place with the blue greys on the carrier. "So you want me to transfer back into the army, into special operations, but still, back into the army. I want you to ask yourself a question, why the f*** would I do that, sir."

"Because you're going to get to fly one of these," he said showing a picture of a MV-24H Vulture VTOL. One of his dreams was to fly one of those beauties.

"Alright sir, you've got me interested. What's the catch?"

An hour later he was lifting off the deck in a Vulture, his Vulture had been heavily modified from the original. Apparently being part of a prototype anti-terror unit had its benefits. Some of those benefits included a cloaking device and nano-armor. O'Neil really knew that it wasn't that it was because their mission was that important – stopping domestic terror threats hardly required a military gunship and a special forces team wearing a prototype Nanosuit, but really more of an excuse for the egg heads at R&D to throw every but of prototype tech they could onto a test bed and give it to some poor soul to pilot. Unfortunately, that poor soul was him.

As he flew toward their target city – New York. He quite liked flying the Vulture, it was a lot like flying his F-35 with both aircraft having vectored thrust as well as directed thrusters, except the Vulture required a lot more control of its directed thrusters and was a lot less maneuverable than the F-35. Of course if someone had told him beforehand that the condition for getting to fly this beauty of an aircraft was that he would have to face his old team he would have done it in a pinch, if he didn't have to face Lieutenant Dunn again. He had a history with that bastard and it was he who had cost him his place on Raptor Team.

Not that he didn't like flying, it was just that his career had gone a very different direction than he had hoped it would. He sighed, perhaps it was for the best.

"What's the matter O'Neil, cat got your tongue? Come on mate, you never shut up" teased Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes.

"You know I might have reconsidered taking this job if I had known that I'd have to be working with you guys again."

"That's hurtful mate, I'd take it personally if I didn't know for sure that you weren't taking about me."

"Yo O'Neil, lighten up man, we all got new toys, ain't no reason we can't turn over a new leaf" said Jester. He knew that he was referring to the bad blood between Nomad and himself.

"I'll stomach being on the same VTOL with Nomad. Hell I'll even stomach Nomad in my gunner's seat. But If I get one word out of him, Nanosuit or not, I'll kick the shit out of him."

"Lock that shit down, we're receiving our orders" barked Prophet. Simply out of respect for the man and because he was his superior, O'Neil held his tongue. He held his current course, looking at the weapon modules for a moment; 20mm cannon firing depleted uranium slugs, 12 Hellfire anti-armor missiles, four AIM-9X sidewinder air-air missiles and dual forward firing .50 caliber machine guns spitting out armor piercing incendiary rounds at 775 rounds a minute. Unfortunately for him, they had only given him 500 rounds for each machine gun, 150 rounds for the cannon, two sidewinders and no anti-armor missiles.

"What the hell, it's just a number" complains Jester

"A social security number to be exact," says Nomad, speaking up for the first time.

"Hold on, additional data incoming. That's odd, they sent the number again with the other details. Apparently Agent Donelly is going to need our assistance."

"Prophet, why would they send the number again."

"Give it up Jester, it's probably just a mistake" says Psycho.

"It's no fun when we have to help the stupid feds" says Aztec.

"Everyone calm down, I know that you all want to know more. That damn spook wasn't very clear at the briefing, but I'll tell you what we need to know. As a part of a test run with a new surveillance system and how well it can integrate with the Nanosuit, we're being deployed to respond to threats of domestic terrorism."

"Getting a ping from Donelly's cell phone. O'Neil, transferring to you now." He looked at the display, a small beacon displaying the agent's current location. He could see the buildings of the city of New York looming up in the distance.

"Prophet, we're ETA 10 minutes from Donelly's current location. What are your orders?"

"Go stealth, drop us off."

"I still don't get why we gotta wear our old TAC gear and uniform over the suits" said Jester.

"Because these suits aren't supposed to exist yet smart arse, neither is this bloody VTOL."

"That's why I'm cloaking and dropping you guys in a parking lot a block out."

"Roger that."

**Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes **

Psycho checked the ACOG sights on his SCAR-H Battle Rifle, loaded with 7.62 armor piercing incendiary rounds and a suppressor threaded onto the barrel. He also had a M110 SAS on his back as well – chambered for 7.62 and featurring armor piercing ammunition, since he was one of the team's marksman, Nomad being the other. This was not including the Mk 23 pistol chambere**d **for .45 acp. All things considered, they were ready to take on a small army.

He felt the VTOL touch down "All right, this is your stop. God dammit, the cloak is overloading with all this damn dust, better send a report to R&D."

"You heard him boys, let's move out."

As one they stepped out in black unmarked uniform, covering every inch of their Nanosuits, balaclavas covering their faces, only their red visors visible. He saw a couple of children who had stopped playing to behold the soldiers and he gave them a one armed salute, his other hand on his gun. "It's been a while since I've been to New York. The city sure has changed."

"Like most things do boss" He said, wondering how long it had been since he visited his family in London. Not like his Dad cared anyway, old bastard might've been dead if he hadn't saved his worthless arse when the loan sharks had come home that day. He hated him for putting his mum and sister through all of that. It was a good thing that he actually managed to pay the money off, otherwise he'd have no home to go back to.

As they passed a bagel store Jester fantasized about eating one, "Man, a cream cheese bagel wouldn't be too bad about now."

"You carrying your wallet Jester?" he joked.

Nomad turned around, "I'll get you one once we find Donnelly."

"Look at Nomad, he actually brought his wallet. I'd swear you were a boy scout mate" he said, chuckling to himself.

Nomad just ignored him, "GPS says Donnelly should be just around this bend." Right as they round the said bend they are met with the sight of an overturned car and a semi which was probably used to ram it nearby. There they are met with the sight of Agent Donelly's body, two shots to the chest..

Jester nods his head slowly, "Damn that must've been a bad crash, whoever did this definitely knew where they were and when they were going to hit this intersection."

Aztec leans in, "Wound's still bleeding, must recent."

Prophet nodded, "You and Jester check the area."

Suddenly a woman stepped out from behind the wreck, "NYPD, identify yourselves!"

"United States Special Forces, anti-terror unit. We're on the same side detective. Are you alright?" asks Prophet. Psycho noticed that she was bleeding from a head wound, she was obviously in the crash as well.

"Yes, I am. I was with Agent Donelly when we were ambushed."

Prophet nodded, "Do you remember what happened?"

"No, when I came to our suspect was gone and Agent Donelly was dead. If you'll excuse me, I need to get back to the precinct and report this in."

"Go ahead detective."

"Feds'll be here soon, sir" informed Aztec, standing up.

"Good, maybe they can shed some light. Until they do, we stay here and await new orders."

**Yeah, so in case you didn't notice, they got sent the same number twice...Hmm, if you remember control sends the number and additional data on them, while the machine just sends one…I mean if I were the machine I would definitely try and acquire a squad of nano soldiers. Anyways, please review and/or PM with suggestions and/or questions. Till next time…**


	2. Chapter 2

**Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes**

Psycho took another look at the dead body of FBI Agent Donelly, there was not really anything that they could do for him. However their orders were clear, find who killed Donelly and bring them in, alive preferably. He looked at the Battle Rifle in his hand and sighed, bringing in people alive was not his favorite thing to do. It was far easier to eliminate targets, but he wasn't used to the easy jobs, it was his skill in accomplishing the impossible that landed him on this team after all. He turned toward Prophet for guidance "Do start this investigation on our own, Prophet?"

"Relax, we'll wait for local law enforcement to move in and set up, then we start out own investigation." Psycho agreed, that way whoever did this wouldn't do something rash. They would be misled by local law enforcement's bungling and allow Raptor team to close in. The characteristic sound of sirens and the telltale appearance of the FBI vans as well as the blue marked cars of the NYPD told them that indeed local law enforcement was on its way.

One of the FBI vans stopped in front of him and out of it jumped several agents, handguns in their hand. Psycho smiled, wondering how amusing their faces would look when they realized that their weapons would even scratch the Nanosuit. "FBI, identify yourselves!"

"Stand down agent, Major Barnes, United States Special Forces, anti-terror unit."

"I think we both know that I'm going to see some ID Major, especially when you're in unmarked uniform."

He shook his head, "We wouldn't catch anybody if we ran around in marked uniforms you muppet."

"We're not carrying ID agent, standard _Delta _operating protocol. I suggest you take up any more complaints with JSOC."

Slowly and reluctantly they lowered their weapons, he turned toward the roof of the bagel store behind them, "Nomad, you can come down from there now." The agent looked down and saw the red dot on his chest vanish, before giving them a foul look.

"Now, if we're done pointing guns at each other I suggest that we discuss what we know. I understand Agent Donelly was one of yours?"

"Yes, he was after a suspect who he believed had backing inside the government." It was safe to assume any illicit operations being conducted would have nothing to do with JSOC and hence they would be safe to confide in. "After seeing what happened here and after seeing you and your team here I believe that is a safe assumption."

"Our orders entailed something similar."

"How'd you boys get here so quick?"

"Wonders of air travel mate."

"Very well, let me know if you find anything." Psycho knew the agent was being hopeful, they had no obligation to do so.

As soon as the agent turned around Prophet turned toward them, "Nomad, get a hold of the traffic camera footage. Aztec, see if you can find out where that truck came from. Jester, sweep that vehicle before the CSI gets to it. Psycho, you see that detective that we saw a while ago, talk to her and see if you can get anything out of her."

He nodded, "On it boss."

He slung his rifle and walked toward the detective who is talking to another portly detective, her face looking very panicked. He raised his eyebrows, what was she so upset about? The chances that she could have got bad news that did not pertain to the situation at hand was so slim that he was willing to bet his life on it. "Detective, we meet again. Sergeant Michael Sykes, I was wondering if I could be of any assistance."

"Sergeant Sykes, at the moment no assistance is required, but thank you. You and your team arrived at just the right time. Believe me, I'll ask if we need any help" she said, and he could tell not only from the fluctuations in her voice that she was lying and that she wanted to be as far away from them as possible but that she was hiding something. He simply nodded and turned, walking back toward where the rest of the team was standing.

**Harold Finch**

"Finch, what the hell is going on?"

"The presence of Mr. Reese's former partner is troubling enough, but these Special Forces soldiers were a cause for concern. Harold knew that somehow the government must've sent them. But something about the way detective Carter described the way they were armed and equipped put him on edge more than usual. Additionally, Agent Donelly's number should've never reached the government, unless…unless the team received it by some other means. The only other means however were…oh dear. He hoped that they could get to John, and hopefully quick.

**Major Laurence "Prophet" Barnes**

"Nomad, what do you have for me?" He said looking at his second in command.

"The camera footage has been wiped from the central servers, backups too, I'm getting nothing." Prophet sighed; that wasn't good, they were going to need to start from square one. He cursed, this would slow them down considerably. He wasn't sure why they were supposed to be looking for who killed this man in any case. Perhaps it was that they might be involved in a potential terrorist attack and that Donelly was close on their trail. In that case they were extremely lucky. "Wait Prophet, I got something. I don't know why but someone put the footage back on the servers, it's like they want us to find who did this."

"Count it as luck Nomad, send me the file."

"Got it Prophet."

He was about to play the video when he heard Aztec's voice in his helmet, "Boss, I found out where that truck came from."

"Let me guess, it was stolen?"

"That's right sir, we're not getting anything out of the seat either, whoever scrubbed it was good." Which honestly didn't surprise him considering all that they had heard about their target being possibly being a current or ex-intelligence agent.

"Got it, stand by Aztec, good work."

"Sir."

Prophet looked at the footage, the truck hit the FBI SUV with enough force to topple it, yet not enough force to kill anyone – obviously a professional. That was good, he'd hate to have to waste both his and his team's time hunting some nut job. Then, a woman walked over to the downed SUV and put two rounds into Agent Donelly before sedating and pulling a passenger out from the back seat, obviously Donelly's suspect.

"Nomad, can you run facial recog on the woman in the file?"

"Negative Prophet, not a good enough angle." Nomad almost did a double take and turned back at him, "Never mind Prophet, results just came through –CIA Agent Kara Stanton. According to her file, she's a real piece of work and the best part, she's dead."

"Say again son, sounded like you said she was dead."

"I did Prophet, what do you think that means? And what does it have to do with Donelly or this man in a suit that she kidnapped?"

"I don't know – " The voice of Psycho crackled in his ears.

"Well Boss, you're going to like this."

"What've you got for me Psycho?"

"I tailed our detective friend, turns out our mystery lady kidnapped our friend to do her dirty work. She kidnapped another person, a CIA Agent Mark Snow to steal a hard drive for her. Apparently she has them wired with a bomb vest."

"Alright listen up, primary objective is to capture ex-Agent Stanton, failing that we put a bullet in her brain and send her back. Secondary objective is to secure this "Man in the Suit" and Agent Snow. Nomad, Jester, get working on tracking any piece of tech that Stanton owns. Psycho, see if you can't follow our friends a little longer."

**Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes**

Psycho knew that even the dog wouldn't be able to sniff out his Nanosuit, he hand stored his unmarked fatigues into his kit, and his rifle was out and at the ready. He had been waiting at the far end of the room for a moment to do something, when he caught the name Harold Finch written on some form of ID. "Prophet, I've tailed a mutual friend of our two detectives. His name's Harold Finch, see if you can find something about him."

"That shouldn't be possible Psycho, he's dead. But then again, that makes two people, see what he knows, don't kill him." Psycho raised his rifle and decloaked, "Don't move."

The man looked thoroughly shocked, the dog growled at him. "Look, I'm not going to shoot you Mr. Finch. I suggest you tell me everything you know about Kara Stanton, and the man she abducted." He heard the sound of the slide of a Glock 17 clicking behind him.

"Hey, I suggest you drop that rifle before I put a bullet in your brain." Without a second's hesitation he swung around, removed the gun from the man's grasp, realizing it was that portly detective from the crime scene. He dropped the magazine and pulled the slide back releasing the round in the chamber into his other palm and handing it over to him.

"Here you go mate, don't hurt yourself." He retrained his rifle on Finch when the strangest thing happened, his suit optics started shutting down. The last word that he saw before they went blank and he was forced to remove them was a yellow box highlighting Finch's face with the words "admin" transcribed next to it.

He activated his comms, "Boss, can you hear me? Prophet, do you copy? Nomad, this is Psycho, are you receiving? Sound off! Damn it!"

"They can't hear you, I'm afraid my worst fears have come true then. Sit down, I'm sorry, I never got your name." For some reason Psycho wanted to trust this man, and so he complied.

"It's Sykes, Sergeant Michael Sykes. What the hell just happened, and who the hell are you? '

"Thank you detective, you may leave."

"Yeah, sure thing glasses. I'll, be outside if you need me." Finch waited until the detective had left before continuing. "A while ago I designed a machine, an Artificial Intelligence that detected acts of terror. When I built the machine, I never imagined it capable of something like this, but now seeing your suit – it all makes so much sense. Your orders never came in from whatever agency you believed sent you, they came from the machine itself. Obviously the machine seeks to use you as its analogue devices, a means to carry out its purpose."

"What purpose might that be, and why should I believe a word you say?"

"The machine's purpose is to prevent acts of terror, which is likely the pretext it lured your superiors into letting it access your suit directly, but it sees everything – so called ordinary crimes as well. Have you ever experienced an error like that with your suit before? I guess not, that was the machine. Right now, your target Agent Stanton has my associate – which is likely why you received Donelly's number, because it knew that you would eventually find Stanton."

"So you're saying that your machine led us to Donelly, because it would lead us to Stanton – who is planning some sort of terror attack that it can't alert whatever agency it reports to, for fear that it will compromise its other operations?"

"Yes, I was supposed to remove that feature."

"You're also saying that's where we come in? Handle what you and your associate can not, but also what the government cannot?"

"That is absolutely correct Sergeant."

"Christ, somehow I believe you. Maybe you can tell your machine that we'd be quite in shit if we tried anything funny. We get free reign, but we're still expected to report back."

"That's the catch, the machine reports mission successes, your superiors would still believe that your mission went according to their plans."

"Look, even if I believe all this, what makes you think that any of us would want this noble purpose?"

"Would you rather be the government's personnel assassins? Right now the machine is telling me about your reservations in participating in anti-terror operations."

Psycho sighed, it was not like they had much of a choice. This thing had a lot of control over their suits and everything that this Finch had said made sense. He was right, they were stuck doing this job, might as well be doing it for the right reasons. "Prophet? You get all that?"

"Yes, we did. But it's not your or my decision to make. Nomad?"

"I'm in sir."

"Jester?"

"Hell yeah, help an AI save this country from a corrupt agency and random acts of crime? Sure!"

"Aztec?"

"I'll follow you anywhere Prophet."

"O'Neil?"

"Why the f*** not?"

Psycho turned to Finch, "We're in."

Suddenly Finch's phone beeps, "Yes detective? It's NSA certified, this model is made exclusively for government and military installations. If I had to guess, it's to store something highly sensitive, or dangerous. Listen I've just received a text from an unfamiliar number. I reads UXO."

"That's the military designation for unexploded ordinance, wasn't your 'associate' fitted with a bomb vest by Agent Stanton?"

"Correct assumption Sergeant, I'm sending you the number for you to track down detective. I'll explain everything later."

"Psycho, there's a bomb threat at 780 Mercer – it could be Stanton. Talk to our new friend, see if he can find anything."

"Listen, Finch, there's a bomb threat at 780 Mercer, find out anything you can.

Finch nods and gets on his phone "Detectives have you found them? That address is for an office building – that's odd. The building has 21 floors but the directory only lists 20. 21st floor is registered to a Stillwater Imports - "

"That's a front if I ever heard one."

"Prophet, have O'Neil meet us at the parking lot south of my current position, we're going to need to get there and fast."

"Finch, come with me." Psycho beckoned for him to follow, prompting him to pick up a laptop and head in the direction of the door. Psycho headed down the elevator with him and he activated his cloak mode as to not draw attention. "How comfortable are you with flying?"

"I have my civilian pilots license, why?"

"Because the fastest way there is by air, traffic's a real pain in the arse."

Finch's eyes widened as he stepped into the cloaked transport, "Oh my."

The door closed behind him and he motioned Finch to sit, "Strap in Mr. Finch." Finch complied dropping the harness. The VTOL lifted off, and Prophet turned toward Finch.

"Mr. Finch, Major Barnes, you can call me Prophet. You've already met Psycho, this is Nomad my second in command, Jester, Aztec and O'Neil. From the plans we obtained, dropping in from the roof will work, from there we will access the floor, our clearance should get us through. Turns out it's a weaponised malware facility, some real nasty stuff. If Stanton gets what she wants, she could cripple the entire defense network, or worse-"

"the machine" completed Finch.

"Correct. With any luck, we'll find Stanton with them."

"Heh, but with our luck Boss, that's not happening."

Prophet just shook his head. Soon enough they were moving down the stairs with Finch. They reached the elevator lobby and Psycho saw two men he hadn't seen in a long time. Raising his visor he leaned in, "Jackson, Russo, what the hell happened to you two?" he asked, pulling off the tape over their mouths.

"Sykes, is that you? Raptor team? Didn't recognize you with those suits."

Prophet leaned in as well, "What's the situation soldier?"

"Sir, two men ATF gear came in, put us down pretty quick."

Psycho pulled up a picture of Snow on his TACPAD, "This one of them, mate?"

"Yeah, and some other guy with salt and pepper hair. We'll be fine, you boys go and stop them." They continued walking onward until they found "Reese" on the floor, slowly getting to his feet.

"Mr. Reese!"

"Finch? Who the hell are these guys?"

"I'll explain later, first we need to get that bomb vest off."

"That's a doozy mate, cell phone triggers can't go off if they can't receive a signal, but some will go off if that happens. Not unless you spoof a deactivation signal, which isn't hard."

Finch nodded, "I would have just unlocked the phone and disabled the timer."

"Don't worry about it, I've disabled loads of bombs." He said, spoofing the signal with ease using the Nanosuits advanced communications gear. The bomb shut off and they removed the vest. As they were walking toward the stairs the door to the stairwell opened revealing the two detectives from earlier.

"John, your alive! Major, what are you doing here, and what is that?" she asked gesturing to their suits.

The portly one looked equally as shocked, "Guess Reese isn't the only man in the suit, huh?"

Reese looked at them now, "Really, who are you? I'm guessing SOCOM, probably Delta."

Finch nodded, "They're a special forces team that the machine convinced to join us, because of their…unique circumstances."

Reese looked them over, "Welcome to the team."

**Till next time…**


	3. Chapter 3

**Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes**

"Ah gentlemen, how was your trip?"

"The bureau closed the case, they were convinced that Snow was the 'Man in the Suit'. That was good enough for control as well, they closed the case and told us to await our new orders." Said Prophet, closing the door to the elevator behind them.

"Excellent. We have a new number, I think that this one might interest you."

Nomad leaned in, "More of the ISA's paid assassins, except this one is just a technical specialist."

"Correct Lieutenant Dunn, according to what I have learned he has been conversing with another high ranking government official, he found out how the Government gets its numbers."

He cut in, "And some suit decided that he doesn't deserve to live. Poor bastard, he has no idea how much trouble he's caused for himself, or his partner."

"Yes Sergeant, based on what information I've been able to gather he's in the city right now, they both are."

"You're not going to waste our time on that kind of a milk run are you?" he asked.

"Of course not – oh my." Finch reaches for his phone, "Mr. Reese, you must hurry the government hit squad is already there!"

Psycho could hear Reese's voice in his helmet, "I'm trying Finch, but there a lot of them. They're not exactly making my job any easier."

"Prophet? We should do somethin" said Jester.

"Stand down Jester, there is no way that we'd get there in time."

"They're just waiting here Finch, what the hell is going on?" Psycho watched as Jester cloak and make for the elevator.

"Jester, stop!" He and the others watched as the elevator descended. He turned toward Finch, "Stairs?"

Finch nodded, "At the beck, on your left."

They made for the stairs and ran down them. When they reached ground level Jester was nowhere to be found. He could hear Prophet over squad comms, "Jester, sound off!"

"It ain't right, what's the point of this if we can't do something right?"

He scanned the area, to no avail – Jester wasn't here. "Boss, he isn't here."

"Damn it, Raptor team move to Reese's location now." As one the team moved through the streets of New York undetected, thanks to the Nanosuit's cloaking system.

Suddenly he heard Reese's voice in his helmet, "Your buddy Jester is with me, that government team is getting awfully antsy and our number and his partner seem to be having some sort of argument." Psycho understood Jester's pain, what was the point of the suits, the weapons, the VTOL or the AI if they couldn't be bothered to at least try and help Reese do his job. He was one man after all, and he would need help from time to time. Everything about the man told Psycho that we was special forces himself, his stance screamed Green Berets.

Psycho rounded the last bend the separated Raptor team from Reese, Jester, the government hit squad and their targets. "Raptor team, check your suppressors, we don't want any more attention than needed. Reese, we've got the hit squad, you get those two out of there." He could see the hit squad in the distance but then something terrible happened – they opened fire on the house they were surrounding.

"Raptor team, go, go go! Let's take these bastards down!" two SCAR-Hs and two HK 416s went up spitting death at the government hit squad. Psycho fired three round bursts into every agent he could see. They had made sure to load commercially available rounds into their magazines when conducting operations for the machine. Fortunately for them, their standard high velocity armor piercing 7.62, 5.56 and .45 were available commercially.

He watched as the agents' bodies were flung backward from the force of the rounds. One of them turned around at them, the shock in his eyes apparent, right before he received a 5.56 round in his head courtesy of Prophet. Jester finished the last two men from the other side with his HK 416. "I'm sorry Prophet, it's just…"

"It's alright Jester, you made the right choice – Reese needed our help."

"Uh guys? Reese still needs your help. We have a situation" came Reese's voice over the comms.

"What's the problem mate?"

"Cole is dead, and his partner just shot me and ran off."

"Damn it, are you alright? The vest took it right?"

"Yeah, but there's more guys here."

"Psycho, Nomad, go help Reese. Jester, Aztec and I will take care of 'Team 3'."

"On it Boss, let's go Nomad."

"Lead the way."

He walked into the building rifle raised. He saw two men on the stairs and fired two rounds into center mass – their vests wouldn't stop a 7.62 armor piercing bullet. "Stairwell, clear. Reese, status?"

"All clear up here."

As he was ascending the stairs one of the government hit men turned toward him "Who…what are you?"

They didn't need any witnesses and Psycho was not in the compassionate mood, "Me? I'm your worst nightmare." He raised the rifle and fired a burst into the man's head, turning it into a bloody mess.

"Didn't need to go that far" came the voice of Nomad over his comms.

"Some people deserve it mate, some people just deserve it."

"Could have been us."

"No mate, couldn't have – we wouldn't have followed orders like that, so blind."

"We're something else aren't we? With these suits?'

"To be honest mate, I lost track of what I was a long time ago."

**Agent Sameen Shaw**

Sameen winced as she pulled a fragment of the 9mm hollow point out of her side. She noticed the empathetic look of pain on Lewis' face. She couldn't understand why she let the bastard shoot her. There were so many things that she didn't understand, like that man in the suit. She knew that he wasn't another assassin but she couldn't afford to be at his mercy – she didn't entirely understand his angle. Also she could have sworn that she heard the sound of suppressed assault rifles, particularly a SCAR-H. Even suppressed, that gun made a characteristic sound that anyone who had fired it enough could identify.

But this wasn't from the man in the suit, she had heard the sounds when she heard him coming in. Which means he must've had backup and heavily armed backup. Even if they were government, they wouldn't come packing SCARs, and if they weren't then who the hell where they? Shaw shoved these thoughts out of her head, she wasn't safe yet – she needed to stay alert.

**Major Lawrence Barnes**

"Yes ma'am, we'll be there. Yes ma'am, we'll take care of it."

"What was that Major?" asked Finch without turning away from his monitor.

"Control just called, apparently Shaw has asked to meet tonight. I just got the location."

"Well, I just got Ms. Shaw's location – Major, why don't you go with Mr. Reese?"

"Raptor, stay here with Mr. Finch, Reese and I should be able to handle this."

"Major, I assure you that you may need more than two men "

"Don't worry about me Mr. Finch." He walked over to Reese was standing, and checked his weapons.

"HK 416, SOCOM Mk 23, are you sure you're not overcompensating?"

"There's no such thing Reese, believe me there's no such thing."

Soon they had reached the building and after dispatching several agents they made it to the room they were looking for. Reese made to move in but he held him back, and just as he did gunshots could be heard. At that point, weapons drawn they entered the room killing the two agents there. He could see Shaw zip tied to a chair, one arm free and holding a Sig Sauer P226. John stepped out into her vision, "Can you do me a favor? Can you not shoot me?"

"Give me a good reason?" At that point he stepped out, HK 416 ready.

"I don't know, I'm a really nice person, and so's my friend here and then there's that." He said, pointing at the syringe in her back.

"I suppose the HK 416 in your friend's hand is good enough reason as well."

"May I?" Reese walked forward and kneels down, hand on the syringe.

Shaw nods but doesn't take her eyes off Prophet, "I'm okay."

"That's the problem with acouphene, you have to counteract with atropine. In case I bump it."

"Based on the amount we use, it'll take about four minutes. So unless you've got some atropine on you, don't bump it."

Reese removed the syringe carefully before turning toward Shaw, "I got a friend who wants to talk to you."

"Why would I want to talk to one of your friends?"

"Got somewhere better to be?" He asked, removing his pocket knife and cutting her other arm loose.

"What about your friend here, he gonna come out like that?"

Prophet activated his suit's cloaking system, "Yeah, you'll get used to it" said Reese nodding at where Prophet was standing.

Soon Prophet and Reese led Shaw into the room where Finch was waiting, Nomad and Psycho flanking one side, and Aztec and Jester flanking the other. Finch turned toward her, Prophet watched from the door. "Hello Ms. Shaw. You can call me Harold."

"You the man in charge?"

"No, no one's in charge."

"My friend- my friends and I help people in trouble."

Shaw almost scoffed, "Or maybe you work for Wilson and this is all just…some kind of game."

"Honestly, I was never terribly good at games. You work, or at least you used to work for a secret government program that prevents terrible terrorist acts and crimes relevant to national security." Prophet realized that he was giving her the speech, the speech that told her to wake up and smell the coffee- realize that she was being used. "The information that you received came from a group of people that you call research, and its notable for two reasons – one it's never wrong and two it consists only of a number." He handed her a sheet of paper.

"This is" she let out.

"Your number," finished Finch "and Mr. Cole's. We were unable to save him, for that I'm sorry. We didn't understand the exact nature of your situation at first." No one regretted not being able to Save Michael Cole's life more than he did, not even Jester. With all their equipment, all their training, they were still unable to save the man's life. He was not going to let Shaw die too, not on his watch.

"If you're not part of the program, who are you, who are they?" she said, pointing to the Nanosuit clad soldiers flanking Finch.

"Let's just say that we all work for the same entity."

"And that entity wanted you and your friends to help me? '

"In a manner of speaking. In truth, we're probably the only people who can help you."

"Well if you know so much about my employers then you must know that they are very, very good at finding people."

"Even you can't run forever," he said, looking at her solemnly.

"I don't need forever, just long enough to find the man behind the curtains. The one who gave the kill order."

"You won't even scratch the surface of their organization, and you'll still be in grave danger. You hold a piece of a puzzle, a secret so important that they were willing to kill Dr. Ukino and your friend Michael Cole and yourself to protect the truth about a group of people you call research. Something that Cole had begun to suspect."

"Which is what?"

"That they don't exist."

"The world looks like it did ten years ago, but underneath – it's become very strange indeed."

"No kidding, I mean look at your armored friends there."

"An invisible struggle has begun, most of the people who knew this are already dead, those that still do are in this room. So like I said, we're here to help you. But first, you need to stop running because you're much too good at it and we can't keep up, for the most part that is."

"Hiding isn't my style."

"But dying is, because as I see it, that's your only option."

"You know I never had many friends, didn't have much use for them. Cole was an exception, and he deserved better."

"A word of advice for what it's worth," Shaw shrugged "Set out to correct the world's wrongs and you'll most certainly end up adding to them." Finch then handed her a card. "My number, in case you change your mind."

"Thanks," she said, looking over the card – Prophet almost knew for certain that she was going to hand it back "but no thanks".

"Vengeance is a double edged sword love" said Psycho.

"Thanks soldier boy, but I think I can handle it."

**Sergeant "Psycho" Sykes**

"Man I sure don't get paid enough for this" said Leon Tau.

"You're getting paid mate?" he asked, still cloaked.

Reese looked at Tau, "But we don't pay you anything Leon."

"I'm gonna widen the distance fellows, you take your chances."

The woman walked out of the van and toward where they were standing. "For Guardian Angels, you two were a bit late to the party."

"You're employers wanted you dead, so now you are." Psycho watched as Shaw pulled out a gun from her coat.

"Guess Leon forgot the instructions about patting you down."

Psycho decloaked, his rifle leveled with her head, "Come now love, there's no need for that."

Shaw rolled her eyes, "I forgot about you freaks."

Finch turned toward her, "Ms. Shaw, we're on your side. In feel like we've proven that you can trust us."

"Trust is overrated, just ask your friend over there with the SCAR-H pointed at my head."

Finch held out his card, "Like I said, if you need it."

She backed up slowly and got into the ambulance, driving off. "Well, she certainly made an impression" said Reese.

"You think she'll call us a taxi?"

Psycho slung his rifle, "Well I certainly did, mate. O'Neil?" In front of the VTOL decloaked.

He could hear O'Neil's voice over the radio, "Where to Mr. Finch?"

"Home."

**Till next time…**


	4. Chapter 4

**Sergeant "Psycho" Sykes**

"Look buddy, I don't care about you, you're Halloween outfit or your god damn clearance. This is an FBI case – you have no jurisdiction here."

"Oi mate, just let us help."

"You want to help? Good, then get the hell out of our way." Psycho was extremely annoyed at this point. He had no idea why the machine gave them this number, who the heck was this Agent and why did he matter so much. Regardless of the hostile nature of the FBI tactical team's leader, they had to help. Psycho had come to trust the machine's plans after both participating in them and seeing them executed.

He turned around when he noticed an FBI van arrive on the scene. He turned and walked toward the van. They had done their research on the number – The team Leader was Agent Hotchner and was comprised of Agents Rossi, Morgan, Jareau, Blake, Technical Analyst Garcia and Dr. Reed – their number. He turned toward Hotchner who was giving him confused looks. He raised hi visor to humanize his appearance a little more, make him more approachable. "Agent Hotchner?"

Agent Hotchner looked at him, still confused "Yes?"

"Sergeant Sykes, United States Special Forces, anti-terror unit. Our bosses saw your men deploying and since we were in the area, we thought we'd assist."

Agent Hotchner paused, deep in thought "Alright Sergeant, but this is a hostage situation." Out of the corner of his eye he could see Reid removing his vest and turning his gun over to one of the other Agents.

"Dr. Reid, what exactly are you doing?"

Without even turning to face him Reid began to walk toward the entrance of the building "I'm going to negotiate." Psycho put his hand on the man's shoulder – he was a feather weight. Psycho began to worry for the kid's safety. "What are you doing?"

"Stop mate, I'm going with you."

"Are you crazy, she'll shoot Maeve if she sees you."

"That's the point mate," he said activating cloak mode "she won't, and neither will you."

"I should have guessed that your suit had some purpose. You special forces guys don't like using what you don't know for sure works."

"That's right mate, now maybe we should get moving?" Reid nodded and began to walk toward the door. Psycho took another look at the camera near the door, it was a good thing he had stood outside of the camera's field of vision.

Morgan spoke to the them, "I hope you know what you're doing."

He tapped into the FBI's radio frequency, "I'll bring your team mate back alive, Agent Morgan."

"He's more than just our team mate Sergeant Sykes, he's our friend."

"I get that mate, believe me I do."

He watched as the UnSub as the FBI team called her walked out from the doorway and pointed the gun at Reid, Psycho raised his gun immediately and fired a single 7.62 round into her chest and decloaked. "Psycho here, area secure, target down."

"You just shot her."

"Yes kid, I did, now let's check the area shall we?" he asked, offering Reid his SOCOM Mk 23.

"That's a nice piece you got there, he said as they walked toward the doorway.

"Yeah, yours is nice too Dr. Reid, but perhaps we should focus."

"Yes, excellent point." He saw a woman tied a chair on the other end of the room.

"Maeve?"

"It's so good to finally meet you at last. Maybe it's the shock but I see some kind of robot behind you." Psycho knew he couldn't be around any longer and so he handed Reiss his knife.

"Cut her loose mate, can I have my gun back please? "

"Yes, of course" he said, handing him his gun handle first and walking up toward where Maeve as secured. As he turned and walked down the stairs he heard Reid speak again, "Thank you Sergeant" his voice trailed off, he realized that he wasn't there. It was for the best, the less people that saw them in their suits the better. Of course these were government employees, but still.

He saw Agent Morgan and Agent Hotchner standing at the entrance, "So long mates, maybe we might see each other again, sometime soon."

"It was good working with you Sergeant" said Hotchner, smiling.

He nodded and turned toward Morgan, "I kept my promise mate," he then turned toward the Tactical Team leader "And maybe, just maybe next time we won't have any problems with your Tactical Team, eh?" and with that they all headed back to where O'Neil had parked the VTOL. Once they had got in and were on their way back to New York Hester got all of their attention, "See that's what I like, you know what I mean? The machine gives us a number and we save them, makes me feel like this suit is actually worth something, like I'm worth something."

Psycho put his hand on Jester's shoulder, "We're more than these suits mate."

"Whoop-de-f*****-do, I just wish my job wasn't to serve as the glorified bus driver- as much as I like flying this thing" said O'Neil. "Whoops, incoming call from Mr. Finch, patching it through."

"I trust the number the machine sent you is alive and well?"

"That he is, I have to tell you Mr. Finch, Spirits are a lot higher knowing that we can make a difference."

"Well, something unfortunate has happened here – Detective Cal Beecher has just been shot, he is dead."

Psycho pepped up, "Beecher? That bloke that Carter was messing around with?"

"Yes, precisely and we have another job. I'll fill you in when you land."

"What'd you say guys? JFK to avoid the queues?" asked O'Neil.

"Shut up O'Neil" he said, quite peeved at his attempt to lighten the mood.

They were sitting in one of the safe houses that Finch had got them, it was supposed to be a mobster's safe house, with a reinforced roof so that they could land a helicopter on it – or a VTOL in their case. It also had quite opulently decorated interiors, not that it mattered, they all slept on the floor anyways. You couldn't spend almost lifetimes serving in the military and end up sleeping on your old bed – it just didn't work.

He turned his head as the door opened and Nomad and Prophet wearing civilian clothes with their SOCOM Mk23s in holsters on their thighs walked in. It was standard Delta operating tactics, to wear civilian clothes, but they hadn't been out of their suits for so long that it felt weird. "Morning everyone, we brought breakfast" he said, putting a bag down on a table.

"Bloody bagels again" he complained.

Prophet put down another container. "Philly cheese steak, for those who are done with Lieutenant Dunn's choice in breakfast."

Jester walked up and picked up a bagel and a cup of coffee, "Hey, I ain't complaining at least it's better than that shit that Psycho brought in."

Aztec nodded, "Yeah man, that stuff is disgusting."

"Oi, you boys just don't appreciate a bit of good old black pudding" he said, reaching for a Philly cheese steak. "Besides, it anyone else but myself tired of sitting on our arses doing absolutely nothing?"

Nomad smiled sympathetically at him, "We got that stuff JSOC sent us, spare parts for the VTOL and those new guns."

"Yeah, the AA-12 and the XM107, cause we didn't have enough firepower already. But that was a milk run. Other than that and help walk the god damn dog we've done nothing but sit on our fat arses."

Just then the door swung open, "Well we have a job for you" says Reese walking in.

"Oi, didn't your mother teach you its rude to not knock?"

Shaw walks in behind him, "Yeah, I didn't know my mother very long so get off your asses and let's move."

Reese gave them one of his smiles, "It's nice to see you guys out of your suits."

As Psycho stands up to get his Nanosuits Shaw walks by, "Nice outfit love."

Reese frowned, "I wouldn't do that?"

"Why not?"

"Because I'll chew you up and spit you out" informs Shaw.

He turns and whispers to Nomad, "I think she likes me, mate."

Nomad just shook his head. Soon they were all suited up and heading toward the roof where O'Neil was waiting in the cockpit, his P90 by his side. Reese had borrowed one of their spare HK 416s with Aztec trading his 416 for one of the AA-12s. The VTOL took off and Reese looked around the craft, "So, this is how the other half travels."

"Oh come on Reese, how can you not prefer driving yourself instead of having to put your life in the hands of some pilot."

"I'll pretend to take no offense at that" called out O'Neil.

"How long O'Neil?'

"Without spooking Homeland security? Seven minutes. With spooking them and possibly ending up a smoldering crater in the side of a skyscraper if anyone else was your pilot? Two minutes, tops."

"What do you mean, spook Homeland security?"

"I mean go to close to supersonic speeds and spook the crap out of every body."

"Get there as fast as you can."

The VTOL soon reached the building dropping them off on the roof. Psycho checked the area, they had heard about this Decima Technologies and from what he had heard he frankly did not like them very much. The descended the stairway until they reached the floor where Reese's GPS tracked said that Finch was on. They open the door and walk through with Nomad, Reese, Shaw and him talking point. He saw three men in suits and fired a burst into them while Nomad shot another and Reese and Shaw dropped the third.

There was a fourth man standing there, with his back turned to them "You must be wondering who I am."

"I think you work for Decima," says Reese his weapon lowered while he and Nomad continue pointing their SCAR-Hs at him. The rest of Raptor was checking the rest of the building for Finch. In case he had managed to get rid of the tracker. The man slowly began to turn around, "I think you're the man to blame for all this."

"Now what gives you that impression Mr. Reese. Oh yes, I know all about you John, and you Ms. Shaw even you Lieutenant Dunn and I would be fool not to have heard of the famous ex-SAS Sergeant Sykes. And those, what are they called? Nanosuits, well Hargreeve-Rasch should employ better security if they want to keep things a secret. I wonder how Mr. Finch and his machine managed to buy your loyalty, do your employers know what you are doing? Since your untimely departure from Northern Lights, I understand you're in need of a cause Ms. Shaw."

"The only thing I need is an excuse to put this bullet in-between your eyes" said Shaw, gripping her gun tighter.

He cut in, "How about you put your hands on your head and we'll take you back to the god damn muppet convention, eh?"

"Your company strapped a bomb to my chest and used me to plant a virus, a virus you're going to tell me how to sop."

"I don't think so, it's a virus which outcome I am very invested in. Besides, my company adapted its code. But it didn't originate with Decima, we found it. On a laptop, the very same laptop that you and Kara Stanton were sent to retrieve from Ordos, China. But if you shoot me Mr. Reese, then you'll never learn the man responsible for tis creation."

"And who is this man?"

"The man who sold the laptop in the first place, the man who is to blame for all this, that man's name is – Harold Finch." Psycho was shocked, the man had to be lying. There was no way that was possible, was it?

"Ah, I see you know him. I've not yet had the pleasure. In fact, I can't seem to put a face to the name, which makes your Mr. Finch very interesting indeed. Please tell him I look forward to making his acquaintance." Just then several Decima men burst into the room, he and Nomad shielded Reese and Shaw while laying down a hail of suppressive fire, tearing through cubicles. The man began to walk away, he aimed and fired one round at him, only for one of the Decima mercenaries to jump in the way of the bullet.

He took out one of the mercs with a burst to the head, causing his head to explode like a watermelon. In a short moment all of the Decima men were dead, or at least very close to it. As they made for the stairwell Psycho noticed one of the mercs who wasn't dead just yet. He aimed his rifle at the man and finished him with a single round to the head. As they entered the stairwell Shaw turned to Reese, "I guess your friend Harold has some explaining to do."

"Can it you two, we need to get to the roof – and fast.' Shaw and Reese nodded, taking the stairs while he checked ahead and Nomad watched their backs. "Prophet, we need to exfil, Decima is all over the building and we need to get find Mr. Finch."

"Get to the roof Nomad – you, Psycho, Shaw and Reese get out of here and find Finch. We'll say here and give Decima hell. Nomad, be advised –they know about the suits."

He cut in, "We know Prophet, they know about us too."

"Damn Crynet, their lack of lack of security has almost compromised this entire op. Alright Raptor, I am hereby authorizing you to go loud when engaging Decima. Exercise caution in _all _other cases. Also, send O'Neil back when you finally find Finch, we'll move in and assist you."

He opened the door to the roof an saw several Decima men waiting with assault rifles, from the way they were holding it – Psycho could tell that they were using armor piercing rounds. Normally he and Nomad would have taken them out using cloak mode, but since Prophet had authorized them to go loud, he called O'Neil instead. Psycho waved Shaw, Reese and Nomad back "O'Neil, you there mate?"

"I'm always here, what is it now?"

"I need you to get rid of some unwelcome party guests."

"Hell yeah! Alright, heads down, I'm on my way!"

Reese turned to him, "You didn't just call an airstrike on this building did you?"

"Relax mate, O'Neil is one of the best."

Shaw's eyes widened, "That doesn't make me feel any better about this, damn it Sykes."

Psycho looked through the door and saw a VTOL fly up past the wall of the roof. All of the Decima men turned toward it, hesitating for a brief second – which proved to be their undoing. O'Neil unleashed hell with the two .50 caliber machine guns tearing through all six of them in less than a second. The high caliber rounds tore off limbs and send blood flying everywhere. The VTOL then swung around dropping the rear ramp and letting them in.

"Alright Reese, where to?"

"From the looks of it, New York Public Library."

"Alright O'Neil, you heard the man, on the double."

"Roger that, engaging cloak and making best speed to the New York Public Library." Psycho could tell that O'Neil was glad to have an in on the action, and that he had been waiting to test out the offensive capabilities of the VTOL. Psycho checked the magazine of his SCAR-H, 12 rounds left – he slapped the magazine back in. Soon they would be at the Library "Reese, Shaw, how are you doing for ammo?"

Shaw checked her USP, "You guys wouldn't happen to have any .45 ammo would you? I'm on my last clip and I have 4 rounds left." Nomad kicked forward a container with .45 ammo. He would have refilled his SCAR magazine if not for the fact that he had five more full magazines, his Sniper Rifle and his sidearm. He watched as Shaw refilled her magazines and then loaded one into her pistol.

"Alright lady and gentlemen, we are a minute out from the public library, this means that you should get off of your asses and get ready to get out of my VTOL." Soon they were moving through the hallways of the public library, the two Decima men they encountered were dead before they hit the floor – both his and Nomad's SCAR-Hs smoking from the recent discharge. A third man attempted to jump Reese, but he removed the gun from his hand and a short moment of hand to hand combat later found himself with a knife to his throat, Psycho put a round in the man's brain "Come on mate, we don't have time to screw around with these Muppets."

Reese wiped the blood from his face and looked at his phone, "It's a good thing you guys are along for the ride, cause we got a lot of guys heading our way. Psycho crouched next to the telephone booth and raised his gun.

"I've got this corridor," his ACOG sight gave him just the amount of magnification he needed. Reese and Shaw took positions with Reese pulling the HK416 he had borrowed off of his back. Nomad pulled himself up on top of the phone booth and retrieved his M110.

"I've got your back" he said, aiming down the sights. Just then the telephone rang, Nomad looked below himself awkwardly. "Someone should get that." Reese gave his rifle to Shaw and walked over to the telephone. Suddenly Reese pulled out his gun and aimed it behind him, firing straight into a Decima merc that even he hadn't noticed.

"Whoa, threat system just lit up, we're surrounded. He saw another merc coming and was about to fire when Reese shot him. "Finch is on the move, we should be after him."

Reese's voice came crystal clear in his helmet, "Stay, follow my lead." Reese began firing when suddenly his HUD lit up with targets. He and Nomad began immediately eliminating the ones that hadn't revealed themselves yet. With 7.62 armor piercing rounds they were firing, some of the cover that the mercs hid behind was quite easy to penetrate and eliminate any merc hiding behind it.

"Let's go," said Reese walking off. He checked the rear, firing rounds at two more mercs stupid enough to show themselves.

As they exited the library Shaw turned toward Reese "You want to fill us in on who you're talking to John, our fairy godmother?"

"The group you used to get your intel from, you called them research – which your ex-boss called Northern Lights. The one's your pal told me don't exist."

"No, they exist, they just happen to be an it, rather than a them – a machine."

"You mean an AI?" asked Shaw shocked.

He smiled, almost the same reaction he had. Of course with his suit, he had come to believe that the previously believed impossible was slowly becoming more and more plausible these days. "Shocking, isn't it love."

"Shut it Sykes." Reese bent down and picked up a pair of broken glasses – Finch's glasses.

"Something you're not telling us, Reese?"

Shaw nodded, "Maybe Finch, doesn't want to be found." John closed his fist around the glasses and turned toward a traffic camera.

"Give me a location on Finch." Unsurprisingly, nothing happened. "You know almost everything that's happening and you won't tell me the one thing I need?"

Shaw looked at him, "Okay look, I already broke you out of jail tonight, I am not springing you from the funny farm."

Suddenly his phone beeped, "Wait, this doesn't have anything to do with Finch, does it?" The phone beeped again. "Alright, call in O'Neil."

"We found Finch?" asked Shaw.

"No, we need to make a pit stop first."

"And the whole prevent an AI apocalypse thing?"

"You like a challenge Shaw."

"Oi mate, what about us?"

"You come too, then we can get this done faster. We're the good guys, which means we have to do both."

**Hersh**

He kicked in the door and there he was, special counsel. He reached forward and pulled off the man's gag and cut him free. "What took you so long? I have a locator beacon don't I?"

"Control believed that the Decima situation took precedence, we were only able to divert and assist you once we had ascertained that Raptor team had the situation under control."

"Those freaks have better have it under control, we've given them a lot of free reign."

"Technically sir, they are still under JSOC and we believe they may have managed to gain the trust of one of the rogue operatives. With any luck, we'll find who she's working with."

**That's it for now guys, till next time…**


	5. Chapter 5

**Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes**

"Where's Bear?" asked Shaw as they stepped into the library. He scanned every corner for any signs of trouble – both passive and active, anything from a listening device or a hostile lying in wait for them. If Finch had gotten rid of his tracker, that meant that he indeed as Shaw suggested really didn't want to be followed.

"He's staying with a guy named Leon, didn't think you even liked the dog."

"Like him? He's the only reason I'm staying around. Why are we here?"

"Because the machine said that this is where I'll find the answer."

"You know mate, as much as I trust the machine – this sounds crazy. How is anyone supposed to find anyone here, forget that- how are _we_ supposed to find anyone here?"

"What did you ask it?" asked Shaw, ever the pragmatist.

"Where the machine is located."

Shaw sighed, and frankly he was inclined to agree with her "Can't it just tell you?"

"I think Finch programmed it not to, some sort of safety feature."

"No offense, but maybe Finch wanted control of the machine himself."

"You think Finch had something to do with the virus? I'm sure he had his reasons. On the upside, hopefully the machine won't have told Root where it is either."

"Next time I see that woman, I'm shooting her."

"Get in line, love. Although Prophet told me about the…awkward situation she left you in."

"Sykes, you better watch what you say."

"Or what?"

"Or you ascend my list of people I want to shoot."

Nomad chuckled, "Hasn't stopped him before Shaw."

She nodded, "Good."

Just then Reese's phone beeped, the text read 'Ghost Alpha Kilo'.

Shaw frowned, "Ghost Alpha Kilo, what's that?"

Reese flipped through the pages until they reached the end of the book, a monochrome picture was sitting tucked in the last page. "That's the tech guy, Nathan Ingram. He worked with Finch?"

"They built the machine together."

Psycho's eye caught something, a seam in the middle of the bookshelf, Shaw caught it too "There's something behind there." Nomad, Reese and Shaw began removing books. Soon they had cleared up the remaining books on the shelf and Reese pulled it off, behind it a sliding door. Reese pulled the door open to reveal a combination safe.

Shaw looked at the knob, "Any guess on the combination?"

Reese's phone beeped again, this time revealing the combination. He reached inside the safe and pulled out photos, "Who are they?"

"I don't know, people they helped, people they didn't" He stopped on one photo.

"You know her?" asked Shaw. The emotions on Reese's face betrayed the truth. He nodded slowly. "Cared about her?" There was a perceptible moment of silence "She alive?"

Reese raised his eyebrows once, not taking his eyes off of them photo, "No." Shaw reached in and grabbed a map. She spread it out onto the table "This isn't Finch's handwriting. Ingram must've been looking for the machine too – after they gave it to the government.

Shaw pointed at the three points marked on the map, "Yukon mountain, Nevada, Comanche peak, Texas and Hanford, Washington – he narrowed it down to those three places. Know what they've got in common?"

"They're all secure federal sights."

Shaw nodded, "Nuclear fuel storage."

"That's brilliant, best place to hide a server farm large enough to store an AI with these kinds of capabilities" said Nomad, nodding in appreciation.

"When Root was torturing me," started Shaw.

He saw fit to interrupt her, "Didn't look like you got tortured, love."

"Being around you is torture, shut up and let me finish. She wanted to know about a nuclear engineer named Daniel Ukino."

"He must've known something about the facility the machine was stored in," concluded Reese "What did Root want to know?"

"The name of the man who hired him for Northern Lights."

"And what was his name?"

"Laurence, his name was Laurence Solard."

He smiled, "Well we better go and find him before Root does, eh gents…and lady."

Soon they were waiting on the rooftop of a nearby building with a good view of Central Park as well a small church where there seemed to be a wedding going on. "I came here once as a kid, with my sister."

"Aurora?"

"You know about a sibling of mine that I don't Psycho?"

"'Course not mate, just hard to forget her."

Nomad chuckled as he remembered their previous conversations on the matter "And you're still not going anywhere near her, besides, you say that about all women – take Shaw for example."

"Oh no mate, she's special."

"She's really something else, huh?"

"Yeah, I think we were made for each other."

"Good luck with that, I think that not even a Nanosuit would save you from her wrath if you f*** up."

He chucked as well and then returned to the scope of his Sniper Rifle. "Alright Reese, I have the bastard in my sight – are you sure you want me to do this?" He asked looking at their 'irrelevant number' through the scope of his rifle.

"Yes." He shrugged and pulled the trigger and dropping the man onto the floor, the round hitting him in the leg. "I should have just capped the bastard."

"People look more at the rounds in a dead man's chest or head, but less at rounds in the leg of an injured criminal" came Reese's voice over the radio.

"Doesn't matter mate, we use guns that can't be traced back to us or the government – god bless America." Psycho began to notice people crowding around a body and the telltale glint of a Sniper Rifle. Upon closer inspection he saw the leader of the sniper team – Hersh. "Hello you ugly bastard. Reese, Shaw, I have eyes on a ISA sniper team – they just took out the poor bastard on the floor. Should I take the shot?"

"Negative, don't give your position away." Just a moment later Reese called in again, "Psycho do you see a blue pickup truck?"

"I do mate, but that's just outside my effective range. Why?"

"That truck, Finch was in that truck."

"Well shit, that complicates things then doesn't it?"

"Not entirely," came Shaw's voice "I found a ticket in that briefcase, to Portland, Oregon. Portland's the nearest airport to the nuclear facility in Hanford, Washington."

"Guess we need to get on a plane then."

"No not really, I'll give our friend O'Neil a call."

Shaw cut in, "Oh right, I forgot that we had a VTOL at our disposal."

"Hardly, it's an expensive aircraft " came in O'Neil's voice.

"O'Neil, speak of the devil" O'Neil cut him off.

"Yeah, yeah and he shall appear. What's all this about Portland?"

"Actually can you take us straight to the facility?"

"In Hanford? Yeah, sure…"

"Where's Prophet mate?"

"Talking to some government agent, I'll pick you up from the park."

Soon enough they were in a VTOL on the way to Hanford. Reese picked up his phone and called detective Carter, "Carter I've been worried, you okay? Elias tried to kill you Joss, he kidnapped your son. His wellbeing isn't exactly a priority for me. Sorry Joss, got to go, please just go and keep your head down for me?"

Several hours of flying later they were in the airspace around Hanford nuclear facility when a shrill beep emanated through the speakers, "This is US Air force combat air patrol 226, state your purpose."

"Vulture 1-1 Navy 1st Experimental Squadron, I have authorization to be here from JSOC. Check your list of transponder codes."

"Roger that 1-1, list says your clear. Any chance you can tell me what you're carrying?"

"Sorry, no can do."

Psycho shook his head, "When will these Muppets understand that need to know, means need to know?"

Shaw and Reese both smiled. Psycho picked his gun up off of the floor as they walked into the building. A guard tried to stop them but Psycho gave him the we have the JSOC all access card talk. They walked past stunned scientists into the main room where they saw Root pointing a gun at Finch. He was about to take the shot when he remembered what Shaw had said.

Shaw fired a single round into her shoulder. They walked up to Finch with both he and Shaw keeping an eye on Root who was on the floor, holding her shoulder. "Harold, are you okay?" Finch turned to look at Root who was whimpering, "Is this what you expected?" asked Reese, referring to the cavernously empty room.

"It's what I hoped," said Finch. Shaw walked the technician who was looking very afraid over to the wall.

"Turn around, you get a bullet?" she asked, making sure he understood. He turned around to see Nomad treating Root and Reese watching.

Reese turned toward Finch "You didn't do this yourself?"

"I couldn't, I locked myself out. The machine was designed to accept alterations in its programming only as a response to an attack, I knew that sooner or later someone would try to take it over. But I didn't know who, so I made sure that when they did, they'd do it with my code."

"You hid a virus within a virus."

"That's quite ingenious Mr. Finch" said Nomad without looking up.

"I realized that the people Nathan and I had entrusted the machine to were the…wrong people and that the only way to protect it would be to teach it to protect itself. I didn't want to involve you in this business Mr. Reese, or you Sergeant Sykes and Lieutenant Dunn, because I had hoped ath even if I did not return you would continue what we started."

"Oi, why'd the alarm shut off."

"That's not good," agreed Shaw "We should go."

"She comes too," said Finch, obviously referring to Root. Shaw gave Finch a look. "If we leave her they'll kill her."

Suddenly three Agents walk in and both sides have their weapons raised. Hersh looks at Shaw, "Shaw."

"You should have killed me better Hersh."

Another man walked in, a man Psycho had come to know as the 'special counsel'. "I know it's a minor matter compared to the utter catastrophe that we're looking at here but I didn't think you'd turn traitor – Shaw or you Raptor team."

"That's a strong word to be throwing around given where we're standing" said Shaw. "What do you want?"

"A word or two with your new friend. I always knew there was someone behind Ingram. Like a black hole, invisible but powerful. So tell me, where did you move the machine?"

"It moved itself," said Finch plainly, clearly unafraid by this thug.

"But who controls it?"

"As of now it controls itself."

"The numbers, will they continue to come to us?"

"That will be up to the machine."

"If they don't start up again, the country is defenseless."

"No, just less well-defended. I think we both understand that what's at stake here has moved beyond simply defending the country."

"Has it? You built the machine for us to use to protect people which we do, very well. Don't fight us, help us recover it, or rebuild it. You can dictate your terms, you have my word."

"You gave my friend your word, and you killed him. We're leaving." With that, they followed Finch out, their guns never being taken off the agents until they left the room.

"You think you're choosing the right side, Shaw? Or you Raptor? Really?"

"You lied to me too" she said.

"I'm just with her," he said, half-shrugging. Had he really said that? Was he getting attached? Yes, and he was enjoying every moment of it.

**Shakes (Shaw x Sykes)? Till next time…**


	6. Chapter 6

**Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes**

"I never thought that I would see the day that I would sit in the front seat of a police car."

"You always have something to say Sykes?"

"Yes ma'am, I do." He said, smiling even though she couldn't see it.

"He's not always like this detective, he's just sour that he couldn't help Reese with the latest number" said Nomad replacing his mask as they watched the van come to a stop after colliding with an abandoned vehicle on the side of the road. Psycho picked up his rifle and cloaked, stepping out of the police car. He saw Reese getting out of the back of the van, looking marginally shaken up.

"They never say thank you" said Reese, removing his balaclava.

"You leave any for us mate?"

"No. Sorry." He shrugged and slung his rifle.

"I wonder why, maybe if you figured out a way to save them _before _ all hell breaks loose."

"Thanks Carter. You know, for what it's worth, you look kind of badass in that uniform."

"Yours is still the same, except the mask is new."

"Oi, what about Nomad and I? We don't look like the grey knights of justice?" he asked, puffing out his chest for effect.

Carter raised her eyebrows, "You guys look scary, I mean seriously, how do you guys sleep at night?"

Nomad nodded slowly, "We'll take that as a complement."

**Major Laurence "Prophet" Barnes**

"Can't say we didn't know Finch, first time we met – Shaw shot me."

"I realize that Ms. Shaw is an effective asset, but I'm not sure I can work with somebody who refuses to carry a cell phone off the job."

Prophet didn't entirely agree that Shaw's methods were too violent, but however he did agree that she was often harder to contact that she needed to be. "Her response to most situations are exactly as they should be Mr. Finch, she's simply following her training. However, I do agree that she is harder to contact than I should be."

"People are out there trying to kill her you know."

"Those are the same people that are trying to kill us." Finch hands Reese a newspaper article.

"The machine still seems to be giving them numbers. What else it's up to is almost too troubling to contemplate. Meantime our latest number - Petty Officer Second Class Jack Salazar, United States Navy."

"Petty officer or petty criminal?"

"A bit of both I'm afraid, he assaulted a man during a bar room brawl five years ago. He all but put the guy in a coma." Prophet noticed they were standing next to a Navy ship, the USS Colorado to be precise. "Judge gave the option of Jail, or the military."

"Jack chose the Navy. So, what's he doing here?"

A siren sounded, "Fleet week. Annual delude of drunken sailors that somehow does not qualify as a military attack." Prophet almost laughed, Finch did have a point. He pitied the poor cities that the sailors were unleashed on yearly.

"Come on Finch, it's just a bunch of cracker jacks blowing of steam. Then, its back to the boat by midnight."

"I'm afraid countless sailors in uniform are going to complicate our efforts to locate Mr. Salazar."

"If Jack's like most sailors, its booze, broads and a tattoo in that order."

"I suppose you know the usual haunts" said Finch, continuing to give the sailors a disapproving look.

"Sure, its two for one boiler makers in Hell's Kitchen."

Finch's disgusted look somehow managed to convey his distress even more, "That sounds horrible."

Soon he and Reese were walking into the bar, "Are you sure two army men in a bar full of sailors is the greatest idea?"

Reese ignored him and walked over to the bartender, "Two whiskies." He was handed one of them. "Relax, try and enjoy yourself – and locate our number. That's six bars down Finch."

Finch's voice came in clear through his earpiece, "Excellent, only 1274 to go."

A conversation caught his attention, and turning toward its participants – he saw their number. "Another round?" asked their number.

"Only if you're buying Jack."

"Wait a second, got eyes on our sailor Finch."

"So there I am, with nothing but my buck knife and my M9 in the middle of North Korea" said the other man with their number. "Am I missing anything Jack?"

"Crocodiles, poison darts?"

"I was getting to that."

"Oh my god, what did you do?" asked one of the two women listening to him.

"It's a long story, and I only got till midnight – so why don't we go someplace quiet and I can tell you all about it." He said, kissing the woman's hand.

"Ashley, let's go" said another man, taking the woman by the hand and making to leave.

"I think the lady wants to say," he said, looking the man in the eyes.

"Screw you Jarhead" said the man. Prophet winced, that was his biggest mistake. Never confuse someone from one branch of service with another, especially if you were insulting them – and if you were a civilian.

"I'm not a jarhead, I'm a squid. But a tubestick like you doesn't get to call me either." Jack extended his hand and stopped his friend from doing anything.

"Leave it RJ, we're here to have a good time. Nobody wants trouble."

Just then, from behind them a man in marine uniform spoke up, "Somebody call somebody a jar head?"

Jack turned toward him, "Look man, don't do this. Let me buy you guys a round."

The man looks around, "Yeah, I could use another." Jack nods. He then picks up RJ's cap and drops it onto the floor.

At this point the Jack gets annoyed, "You're going to need to pick that up."

"Or what squid, one of you split tails gonna do something about it?"

"I'm going to have to take a swing at you, then you're buddy is going to try and jump me and I'm going to have to introduce his face to the bar."

Prophet had enough, while this was entertaining, it was wasting their time "Reese, let's move in."

"Wait a moment Barnes, let's see how this goes."

Soon a brawl broke out and he and Reese moved in to get Jack. He saw Reese get hit in the back with a chair. Someone yelled, "COPS!" and they ran.

"I told you, we should have moved in" he said, helping Reese to his feet.

Reese ignored him, "Finch, how many squids are in the city?"

"Oh only about 6000, why?"

"We're going to need help to find him, all hands on deck for this one."

"I'll tell the rest of Raptor."

Soon enough they were back at the 'Library'. "Did you find out if our sailor was a victim or a perpetrator?"

"No, but he sure knows how to handle himself in a fight. What else we got on this guy?"

"He scored all 5s on his evals last year, highest marks. Same on his physical readiness test."

Prophet nodded in appreciation, "Impressive."

"The Navy may have bigger plans for him," concluded Reese.

"His contract's up in six months, he'll be free to go."

"Can you find out if he's taken any other tests – academic or PST exams?"

"I will, it seems like getting into a bar room brawl on shore leave is not very prudent for someone with further military aspirations."

Reese put the –photo down, "Jack didn't start that fight, but he was willing to finish it. I would have done the same thing."

"Yeah, I would too. Except we would have kicked their asses a lot faster – with or without the suits."

Reese nodded, "No one doubts your capabilities without the suits Major." He turned toward Finch, "His shore leave buddy was in trouble."

Finch got up from the table and held up a picture, "Robert Johnson Philips. Petty Officer third class and ship store keeper."

"And first class trouble maker."

"They're shipmates, which means they'll have to sign back into the ship together."

"Perhaps we should enlist someone else with military experience."

Prophet raised an eyebrow, "I'm standing right here."

"No offence Major, but you are career military"

Prophet cut him off "I was a grunt once."

"Correct, but you may not know you're way around this city, and we may require a more…feminine touch."

Soon they were walking with ex-Detective Carter. "You clean up nice detective."

"Thanks Major, you too. Man those suits are just too much for me, maybe I'm just getting old."

They ducked into a small deli. "Why are stopping here?"

"I told you that this area is restricted, sailors aren't supposed to be here."

"Well when did the Navy outlaw pastrami?"

"See that phone booth, just watch."

Both he and Reese watched as the sailor dialed a number, place the phone back on the hook causing it to drop down and reveal an entrance to a club of sorts. "Now that is something that I didn't expect. That's like something out of a James Bond movie."

They stepped in " Mayor know about this place?"

"IF he did then he'd have to shut it down. But then half the NYPD would have to have a new place for bachelor parties."

"How you holdin' up Carter, you lookin' for a new job?"

"I'm a cop, always will be John."

Prophet noticed their number on the floor below, "I don't mean to interrupt but I found our number. Damn this club is crowded, kind makes me wish I didn't bring my Mk23."

"He's not going away this time, excuse me" said Reese. Prophet followed Reese, ready to jump to action if need be.

Suddenly Jack's friend walked in, "Whoa baby, I got the cash and a rapidly closing window."

Prophet stopped paying attention to their conversation and reached for his Mk23, specifically the tactical attachment. The dart that it fired could put a man out in less than a second. Reese saw him and shook his head. His voice came in clear through his earpiece "Not in here Barnes, Someone will notice." Prophet walked over to Reese.

"Relax Barnes, get a drink. You of all people should understand the value of patience. All those high profile Delta missions make you forget everything else?" Reese signed for a beer and gave it to him, extending his own glass. He reluctantly reached for the glass and clinked it against his and then took a sip.

"Where's Carter?" he asked Reese.

"She's a big girl, she can take care of herself."

"Yeah, how'd you and Finch become a team?"

"He found me on the streets, gave me a job."

"You bought this machine thing on day one?"

"Well…"

"I guess you had seen some shit too huh, when you worked for Uncle Sam?"

"Let's just say that."

"You're alright Reese, you and Harold. To be honest, the rest of Raptor is really happy to be doing what we're doing."

"You guys don't think you're betraying the government?"

"Our loyalties are with JSOC and Delta, if the ISA thinks that they can use some AI to control this country, then they have another thing coming. Now that they heard about Decima, they're increasing our budget."

"That's good to hear, can we count on more firepower?"

"You need only ask us Reese, you need only ask."

Reese looked at something behind him, "Our number's on the move."

"Let's move."

They followed him out, Prophet turned to Reese "Man I wish I could just will the suit into existence around me."

"What, having the suit in the first place isn't good enough?"

Reese peeked out, Prophet could make out a conversation between their number and someone else.

"Remember me?"

"Uh yeah, from the ship. Is there a problem?"

"Yeah, you know what the problem is? You have it, we want it back."

"What're you talking about man?"

John got on the comm to Finch, "Much bigger problem Finch, some Devil Dog's got a bone to pick with Jack."

"Devil Dogs?" asked Finch

Reese nodded, "Yeah, Spec Ops, Force Recon Marines. Four, maybe five – they've sealed off the block. If we go straight in Jack will be dead before I can even get to him."

"Raptor can get here in five-to-six minutes."

"We don't have time, this is an extraction. Barnes, with me – we'll steal their car."

"You mean we're stealing the car, they're stealing?"

"Something like that." Said Reese, drawing his SIG Sauer P226, he drew his MK 23. They both got into the car and drove it to where the three Marines stood. They opened the trunk and dumped Jack in. One of them made to open the door when Reese drove off. They pulled out their sidearms but before they could fire, he sent several rounds their way, hitting one in the leg. He smiled, it was good enough, after all he managed the shot from a speeding car.

They reached one of Finch's safe houses where Shaw, Nomad and Psycho were waiting. Aztec and Jester were keeping looking for the Marines. On a couch in front of them, they had left the sailor. Shaw was preparing to remove the bullet from the man. He had his Nanosuit back on now, and they all had their guns by their sides. "We gotta get the bullet out before this squid wakes up."

Nomad turned toward Shaw, "Are you sure that you don't want me to do this?"

"I got this Dunn," at that the man tried to sit up. Shaw and Reese tried to make him stay down but he continued to struggle. Psycho activated his suit's strength mode and held him down. Shaw pulled her gun on him, "Could shoot you or save you, frankly this could go either way."

"She isn't joking mate," said Psycho, looking straight at the man.

Reese looked straight at him, "Mr. Salazar, we're the good guys."

From behind them Finch spoke up, "Oh I knew this was a bad idea."

"Who are you people?"

Prophet stepped in, "Son, I'm Major Barnes, Delta Force, currently running anti-terror operations for the Federal Government."

"Delta huh, that means no ID. Then again those suits tell me a lot Major. Who the hell are these three?"

"ISA Agents, they're helping us out."

"Where am I?"

Finch stepped forward, "You have a bullet lodged in your shoulder Mr. Salazar, courtesy of Devil Dog Force Recon Marines. Now Miss Shaw and Lieutenant Dunn both have medical experience, you either let one of them retrieve the bullet or we can continue to discuss the matter until you contract Sepsis."

He turned to Shaw, "You sure you know what you're doing?"

Nomad cut in, "_Do _you know what you're doing?"

She nodded, "I've been shot, a lot."

"You want to tell us why a squad of Elite killers is after you?" asked Reese.

"Don't know, guys were in Somalia doing god knows what – fighting rebels. Leader had a war trophy he wanted to bring back, AK-47. Stashed it in a crate of spend brass."

Finch frowned as Nomad and Shaw removed the bullet from the man's shoulder "So you helped them smuggle an illegal weapon past customs?"

"It happens all the time, my buddy RJ unloaded the crate, said he gave back the rifle."

"It doesn't add up, why would they try to kill him over a weapon?"

Nomad agreed, "Especially over a weapon that can be bought legally in several states."

"It's not the weapon Miss Shaw, it's what's inside it. Somali pirates attacked a deep sea mining vessel off the coast of West Africa. Your friends stopped them." Shaw and Nomad had just finished up with his stitches.

Psycho cut in, "Let me guess, a pirate's booty hidden in the weapon?" Suddenly Salazar's phone rang. He picked it up and stared at it.

"Go on, answer it mate" said Psycho, nodding at it. He answered the call and put it on speaker.

"Hey bagger, you forgot it's the buddy system? We got your buddy."  
>"Sorry Jack, I screwed up. Look I taxed 'em, it was just a few, I didn't think they'd miss them."<p>

"Miss what, what are you talking about?"

"Check the Cubans."

Reese picked up the Cuban Cigars which broke open to reveal large uncut diamonds. "Uncut stones."

"The ship was mining diamonds" said Finch, realizations dawning on him.

"Want to see your buddy alive Jack, bring the rocks to the bad cock room twelve. Come alone." Reese slapped in a new magazine into his pistol.

Psycho picked up his rifle and pulled back on the charging handle, "They won't even know what hit 'em."

**Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes**

As usual he and Nomad had been paired up with Shaw and Reese. Not that he minded, they were both his kind of people, they all understood what they had been through. They were standing in the doorway of a building where the exchange was slated to happen. "What are we even doing here?"

"Recon, the exchange goes down there in ten."

"That's it, Spec Ops will have a Sniper. That's where I'd be. Got any cash?" Reese gave her some money and she went over to the ice cream cart. Psycho understood what she was trying to do and cloaked, joining her.

"Great idea love, I got your back."

"Yeah well come any closer and I'll kick your ass so bad that you'll be pulling your suit out of it."

They walked into the building together, Psycho was glad that he had brought his own Sniper Rifle – the trust M110. They walked onto the top floor and while Shaw walked ahead to pistol whip the man, he slung his rifle and fired his tactical attachment on his pistol. The man dropped instantly. Shaw retrieved his Sniper Rifle while he snorted. He pulled out his Sniper Rifle and set it up where the Force Recon Sniper set it up.

She looked straight at him, "No fair, that's cheating."

"All's fair in love and war sweetheart."

Several minutes later they don't see Reese exit, but they see a very flustered Jack Salazar leaving and getting into a Taxi "I could follow him."

"Would your cloak survive the drop?"

"It would probably disrupt when I hit the ground."

"Then don't take the chance. Harold, the exchange went pear-shaped."

"Yes I heard, can any of you follow them?"

"Not without being seen."

"This is Nomad, I happen to be holding on to the top of a New York cab, any idea how long this cloak lasts?"

"Oi Nomad, you crazy mate?"

"A little, yes. You've been rubbing off on me 'mate'."

"Very funny."

"This is not the time, avoid detection Lieutenant, but if you can take eliminate them – go ahead."

"That's oddly aggressive for you Finch," said Shaw.

"I don't appreciate bullies Miss Shaw, it's one of the reasons I do what we do. Well the Marines will have to fence the uncut diamonds, locate the fence – well we can locate Jack."

"Where to now?"

"I have another resource working on that."

"Suit yourself."

Psycho raised an eyebrow, "I see what you did there."

"Shut it Sykes, Nomad – what's his specialty?"

"What's not Nomad's specialty? The man is competent at everything from Recon to flying a bloody VTOL."

Shaw raised her eyebrows. "Comforting."

"He'll get the job done, besides we should focus on ours."

"Which is what, sitting on this roof?"

"No, finding out why Detective Fusco is here." Saw walked over and saw Fusco walking into the building.

"Finch must have figured something out, come on – let's go. "

**Lieutenant Jake "Nomad" Dunn**

Nomad quickly rolled off of the Taxi, the Cloak power meter said that he had about 30% left. He watched as Jack reached under the bench next to him and retrieved a phone. He began his conversation and Nomad knew that they had a rifle trained on him from somewhere, but where? He would not be able to find the man before his cloak ran out and so he crossed the street so he could ascend the buildings and follow him.

Soon he had followed him to the pawn shop. It had been a while since he had gone inside. "Nomad to Psycho, Reese and Shaw – you guys here yet?"

"Reese here, I'm on my way in – you coming?"

"Hell yeah, can't wait to see the looks on their faces." Nomad jumped off of his perch and walked with Reese. Reese casually opened the door.

He then looked around "I'm sorry, are you guys closed?"

Nomad had his gun at the ready, "Looks like, maybe we should come back later."

"Can I make a suggestion?" asked Reese, hands half raised.

"What the hell are you doing here?' asked the lead Marine.

"Who is this, cop?" asked the Russian. He then turned toward Nomad, "It's not yet time for Halloween I think friend."

"A concerned third party. We have no stake in this except for helping my friend Jack out of here with the same number of holes he had in him when he came in."

"What's your point?"

"Forty cents on the dollar?" he asked "or maybe my friend here can show you what that Halloween costume lets him do?" Nomad flared armor mode activation and raised his rifle as if to prove his point.

Nomad could hear Shaw's voice in his helmet, "Hey no offense Reese, if this whole vigilante thing doesn't work out for you, I don't really see a future for you in conflict resolution."

Psycho cut in as well, "She has a point mate." He suppressed the urge to retort.

"This suit here, just got your buddy killed." The man sighed when he realized that his bomb didn't detonate. Nomad smiled to himself, that Fusco was either very good or just very, _very _lucky. "I suggest that you keep your mouth shut," he turned to the Russian "and you give us what you agreed to or we kill you."

"You think you're pretty tough no, US Devil Dogs. Run around, kill Iraqis, kill Afghans, Somalis. You know who you don't kill? Russians"

"Reese, Dunn, why are the Russians backing up? '

"Oi, Nomad, Reese I see multiple shooters on the floor above you. Thermal vision just like up like a goddamn Christmas tree. Get clear now." Nomad didn't need to be told twice, although his armor mode would hold for a while and then the suit's plating itself for still longer. Nomad threw them both out of the building and then jumped out himself.

"You going to ambush somebody use a muzzle suppressor" came Shaw's voice as the sound of gunfire erupted around them.

"I'm afraid not even a muzzle suppressor would save them from a Nanosuit equipped sniper" came Psycho's voice.

"In the arm, through a brick wall, in the dark – you're welcome"

"Through two knees, through a brick wall, in the dark – I'm so much better at this/"

"Nanosuit equals unfair advantage Sykes, shut the hell up."

Reese turned toward Jack, "Want to get out of here?"

"Yeah, I think so." Just then one of the Marines attempted to get a jump on them, Nomad simply replaced part of his brain with a 7.62 bullet.

"The Russians missed one, oh well."

"Time to get your friend back to the ship before he turns into a pumpkin."

"You're pretty handy with that thing" said Reese.

"Thanks" said both Shaw and Psycho.

"I'm hungry, you're buying me a steak."

"I have to drop Jack off Shaw."

"I wasn't talking to you John. Sykes, you're up."

He cut in, "Am I invited, I know this great place."

"Sure, it'll give me someone to talk to other than Psycho here."

"That's my name love, don't wear it out." Nomad just shook his head as he walked out of the wrecked pawn shop.

**Till next time…**


	7. Chapter 7

**Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes**

Psycho walked with Reese into the apartment. His rifle was up and he was looking for the bodies and the fact that there were none was disconcerting to him. Shaw could put up a huge fight and the fact that communications between her and Finch had gone dark combined with the distinct lack of bodies only served to concern him. Was it possible that she had simply decided to leave? No, she enjoyed working with The Machine and its "other analogue" interfaces. Another thing that concerned him was the fact that Root was missing. Did she have something to do with this?

Psycho found him checking his understanding of the relationship between him and Shaw. It was all just concern for a friend, after all he was only messing around, wasn't he? He flirted with every pretty woman that he came across. What was it he had told Nomad, 'She was special?' In some ways it was true, she was almost as crazy as he was, _almost_. He had to stop worrying, Shaw could take care of herself, after all she had managed all this time without her – and there was no them, he had to stop thinking that way.

Reese reached the door and turned toward him, he activated strength mode and kicked the door open – smashing it in two. Right as the door fell into pieces around him he brought his rifle up and swept the room. Reese stepped in after him, "We're in Finch. She's not here."

"Of course she's not, unless she's a bleeding Ninja."

"If you had said that to me a couple of weeks ago, I wouldn't have thought it was possible."

"Fair point mate, fair point."

"I'll finish up here, you talk to Mr. Finch and find out about Mr. Sloan."

"How did you know?"

"There are advantages to having a suit with an advanced inbuilt computer that has access to the city's database, I don't need to be a computer expert – just need to run some commands and" he snapped his fingers to make his point, "I have what I need."

Reese nodded and holstered his weapon, he then walked toward the door. Psycho turned around his eyes falling on the unmade bed. Psycho knew that Shaw being an ex-Marine would not be able to walk away from the bed in this state. He looked around the rest of the apartment, it was in a reasonable state – it showed no signs of a struggle. He scoffed – all this investigating, he was starting to sound like a sodding detective himself. Whoever did this had to have incapacitated Shaw while she was sleeping, they had to have managed to enter without her noticing.

Of course there was the possibility that Shaw had just staged it to look like this and had simply left. His mind was going everywhere, 'Get it together Michael!' he told himself. How was he, a trained SAS and Delta operative losing control of things like this. That was when something in the bed caught his eye and just to be sure he raised his visor. He could see small pieces of paper on the floor near the bed, he had seen this before. It was the sort of discharge that was left when you fired a Taser. This narrowed it down to not being Decima or the ISA, simply because the former would have sent more men thereby not having to use a Taser and the latter would have simply killed her.

"Oi Reese, take a look – someone fired a Taser here. Only one person I know who might want Shaw alive – even temporarily. And only one person who would be too caught up in their own bloody self-confidence to bother to clean up after themselves."

"Root."

"Spot on mate."

Finch cut in, "Alright, god work you too. Once we're done with this number we'll find Miss Groves and bring Miss Shaw back."

"That crazy woman's really cruisin' for a bruisin'"

**A/N: I have always wanted a British character to say that!**

"Come on Sykes, let's go."

Soon they were a ways away talking to Detective Fusco who had apparently found Root's car. "Got your message Lionel, looks you found Root's car." asked Reese. He was standing by cloaked. This was good news, they had the car which meant that he could find Root a lot easier.

"Yeah, and a crazy story to go with it. A medical supply van was just stolen by two woman driving that car. One flagged him over to ask for help with engine trouble and the other knocked him out with some sort of martial arts. I hate to say it, but it seems like they're working together."

"That makes some sense, Root must've wanted Shaw for a reason. Maybe to help her do something."

Fusco held his chest, "You're going to give me a heart attack some day you psycho."

"No mate, you have that covered."

Fusco raised his eyebrows, "Very Funny, well I've got to go. Some of us have an actual job."

"I still get paid better than you mate." Fusco just shook his head and walked away.

"Finch, we're closer to Root and Shaw, from what we can see it looks less like a abduction and more like an partnership ."

"A partnership, to what end?" asked Finch.

"No idea, but with Root involved it can't be good."

He had an idea, the machine was supposed to be using them as its analogue devices – wouldn't that mean it worked both ways? "I know you're listening, can you confirm?"

A moment later he heard a synthesized voice in his helmet, "Yes."

"Good, then tell me where they are." There was silence. "Alright, tell me where their stolen van is."

"Mission Critical" replied the synthesized voice of the machine.

"I understand that, I want to help them so that they don't get killed – that's what you wanted me for in the first place isn't it? After the mission, all bets are off – understand?" A waypoint flashed on his HUD, honestly, he didn't think that this would work, he assumed that because of its programming it would not give him what he wanted. However he made a reasonable case and it understood his reasoning – he had to remind himself that despite its mundane title, 'The Machine' was really a hyper intelligent AI.

He began walking, about 90% of cloak mode left – enough to get to Shaw and get this madness done with. He hadn't expended a single round – he was fully armed, and a Delta trained Nanosuit user was a force to be reckoned with. He activated the comlink to Reese, "Reese, listen I think I know where Shaw and Root are, you go ahead and help Finch – I'll get the drop on them and find out what the hell is going on."

"Alright, I suppose we have the man power now – I'll call Nomad."

"Yeah, last I knew he was trying to bury the hatchet with O'Neil, so he's either very dead and our safe house is a wreck or he's available."

He continued walking the marker on his map becoming closer. He pulled back on the charging handle of his SCAR-H. He knew that he couldn't kill Root – yet. He looked across the street and there he saw it – their stolen black van. Looking around he noticed nothing out of order, save for an open access hatch with no warning signs around it. He walked up to it and slowly lowered himself in. Suddenly Root turned around firing a round into him. He didn't even feel the impact as the cloak dissipated and the suit switched over to armor mode automatically and he charged at Root, smacking her into the wall his forearm held against her neck.

"Nice try, but this suit's built to take a lot more than that – nice reaction time though, I'll give you that." Root had a crazed smile on her face.

"What took you so damn long Sykes?" asked Shaw, holding a blowtorch.

"What, no thank you? Then again, you're not really a damsel now are you, love? More of a partially unwilling compatriot. Mind telling me what you ladies were planning to do down here?"

"Actually she was about to tell me before you came in here?"

Root frowned, "Honestly? I don't know , I usually find out right before I do something." She looked at Shaw, "But what I do know is that I need you."

He looked straight at her, "You're not getting rid of me that easily."

She turned toward Shaw, "You're boyfriend can come too if you want." He let go of Root, taking a step back.

Shaw looked at him, "He's not my boyfriend."

He held his hands up, "What, I'm not good enough for you Shaw?" he said, pretending to be insulted.

Root turned around, "Never mind, she says he comes too."

He turned toward Shaw, "Who?"

Shaw sighed, "The Machine."

He nodded and turned toward the metal grate that Shaw turned to begin cutting. "Wait," Root turned toward Shaw and put on a pair of sunglasses on her "safety first." Shaw began cutting began cutting through the grate. Soon the blowtorch stopped.

"Great, almost done and this thing dies."

He activated strength mode, "Stand back." He took a step forward and kicked the grate sending it flying forward.

Root stepped through the newly created hole, "I guess he is useful for something. Come on Shaw." He stepped through with Shaw and Root walking in front of him. He casually aimed his rifle in Root's direction. Whenever his crosshairs were aligned on her the 'X' that appeared over it to signify friendlies appeared. Great, the machine had added her to the suit's list of friendlies. He could shut off his network uplink scrub the systems and reset the list to default, but it wasn't worth it. After all, he could always manually aim, even without the enhanced aiming module that the suit provided.

They soon reached some sort of apartment that Root handed the key for to Shaw. "If you can't tell me what we're doing next, you mind telling me what we're doing here?"

"Breaking and entering," said Root calmly.

Shaw opened the door. He brought his gun up partially, while he knew that if they were opening the door with the guy then there were no immediate threats behind the door but he didn't trust Root. She put her hand on the barrel of his rifle, "I know that you're not very capable of intelligent thought, but you should put that away – we don't need it, yet."

Shaw cautiously stepped in, "Locked door, a phone." Root walked over to the table and picked an apple out of the fruit basket, crunching on it. He always knew that woman was a fruit cake. Only she could have such an air of calmness that was often more so than naught ill-suited for the situation. Shaw continued to pace around the room. "What's missing?"

Root had now sat on the table and simply gestured to the door behind Shaw, "Behind you." Shaw engaged in hand to hand combat with the Agent who had stepped out and she eventually bested him, knocking him to the floor. He made to stand up when Psycho decloaked, raising his rifle and firing his tactical attachment into his chest. He then walked over and removed the dart. Shaw was giving him a look. He shrugged, "Quick, quiet and leave no trace – that was what my instructor taught me about counter intelligence ops, I thought you would have been trained similarly."

"I didn't have a fancy gun like yours Sykes."

Root held up her Taser, "Or a Taser Shaw." She turned toward him "And here I thought you would have just shot him, you have more up there than I thought."

He held up his pistol, "You could have asked, love."

She just shook her head. He watched as Root got on the phone to the now incapacitated Agent's superiors and arranged to deliver a package – standard routine, he had seen it a dozen times. Of course he knew what kind of package they were supposed to deliver – it was just the matter of which one of them was bait.

Shaw looked at Root, "Okay so what's the package?"

Root held up a pair of zip ties and a black hood, "I am."

**Lieutenant Jake "Nomad" Dunn**

"I can't believe he did it again?" he said, extremely annoyed.

"What?" asked Reese from the driver's seat of the car. They were driving to the storage locker that Finch was investigating with the their new number.

"He ran off and got me to do his old job."

"He does this often, we were once sent in to clear out some cultists in Durango, Colorado and evac two FBI agents. Psycho ran off to take the cultist leader down, leaving Jester, Aztec and I to clear a part for the state police to rescue the agents."

"Where was Barnes?"

"Prophet? He was flanking them with heavy weapons. We scared the shit out of the cultists, we were wearing our unmarked uniforms with the Nanosuits underneath."

"They send you after cultists often?"

"Early test for an early version of the suit."

"Ah, we're here." Reese stopped the car and he activated his cloak mode stepping out and following Reese into the building with the storage units. As they entered they could see Bear by the closed shutter of one of the storage units. Nomad didn't need any more proof that they were trouble and he activated his suit's strength mode and kicked the shutter in leaving a huge whole.

Finch saw him, "Lieutenant Dunn!" and then both of them stepped through the hole. Reese grabbed their number and he grabbed Finch and with Bear they ran toward the exit as an explosion raced to envelope them.

Soon they were in one of the safe houses. They were all looking at a picture of what Finch and their number saw on the wall of the storage unit. "I believe I know who tried to burn us alive." He said bringing up an image of some sort of writing "the last time I saw code like this it was used by this man." he brought up an image of some man that his suit's facial recognition system identified as 'Peter Collier'. "He's a member of a group trying to send a message about government surveillance and privacy."

"He'll kill anyone who gets in his way" said Reese handing their number a cup of coffee.

"He's the most visible member of the group, and your foster brother Jason Greenfield was likely another as well."

The man refused to believe this, "Jason would never hurt anyone."

"Well that may not have been his role in the group. The email that I recovered from Jason's flash drive contained an identifier string that I was able to match to a conversation on the dark net, and exchange between hackers. One of whom was being lauded for exploits that were nothing short of astonishing. The hacker goes by the name of Apple7, but their real identity seems clear."

"My Brother."

"Indeed. The targets he chose, those are all government, military, data collecting corporations, perhaps that's what put him on Collier's radar."

Reese cut in, "So they teamed up, and at some point Greenfield decided that he wants out."

"And they killed him," finished their number.

"They may be coming after you now" said Finch.

"Me?" asked Sloan.

"These people value privacy, secrecy above all else Mr. Sloan, by uncovering them…"

"You kicked the hornet's nest" finished Reese.

"The best way to protect you from Collier is to figure out what he's up to and to get out up ahead of it. The messages in the storage unit appeared to have been encrypted with a running key cipher."

"Find the key, break the code" said Reese.

"So what's the key?" asked Sloan.

"A long string of text, a book, a letter, Jason would have had one."

"I'll go to his apartment, Nomad – you're with me."

He shrugged, "Whatever you say Reese, you're the boss for today."

Suddenly Nomad noticed their number running up to them, "Hey, I'm coming with you guys."

"No you're not."

"Listen, I'm really good at finding things that people try to keep hidden. Please, let me do this – for Jason."

Reese sighed, "Come on." Nomad shook his head as he pulled back on the charging handle of his SCAR-H.

**Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes**

Psycho looked at Root sitting in the chair in front of them, securing the zip tie to her own wrists. Shaw walked up to her with the hood, "Any last words"

"24381" said Root. Shaw rolled her eyes and placed the hood over Root's head.

"Whatever," she said as she turned her attention to the knocking on the door.

He quickly activated his cloak when Shaw opened the door. Two agents entered through the door, one male and the other female. The man stepped forward, "PIN?"

Shaw hesitated for a moment, "24381."

The man nodded, "Good to meet you Agent Dearborn, she been sanitized?" Shaw handed her Root's Taser. For all her craziness, Psycho had to admit – this plan seemed to be working so far. The man tested the Taser and nodded. Shaw brought Root over to him. "Looks like you got a fun one."

"You don't know the half of it" said Shaw as she moved Root. Psycho followed at a distance, there were few things that could disrupt the cloak, but he would be standing in close proximity to two armed Agents.

Soon they were in the holding cells section of whatever CIA site this was, his cloak had not lasted this long and he was instead hiding in plain sight in the rafters above. The suits systems augmented by the machine disabled every motion tracker in the area. Right now he was standing above Root's holding cell, "Hope that voice in your head knows what its doin. That's gotta go," said Shaw reaching for Root's earpiece.

"Sundown, Ottawa, Left, Right, Left, Right, 1, 2, 3."

Shaw stared at her perplexed for a moment. "You say the sweetest things." She then proceeded to step out of the cell. Another Agent walked up to her, his facial recognition software identified him as 'Nick Breckenridge'. "Agent Dearborn? Nick Breckenridge, Chief Interrogator. It's a little late to be checking in a new asset, we're preppin all prisoners for transport."

"Transport? We just got here." He winced, come on Shaw, you know better than to do that.

"You know the drill Dearborn, you move these guys every 72 hours you get to interrogate indefinitely. Now, need some info…" He was cut off by the sound of static emitting from his radio. He shook his head and turned off his radio, "Encrypted radios, always acting up. Name of operation?" he asked pulling out a clipboard.

"Sundown."

"Asset's place of origin?"

"Ottawa."

"Transport authentication number? You should have gotten from the operative guarding the pickup site."

"Stress was high on this one, must have forgot."

"You think you can come in here and ignore all kinds of protocol, don't you? No authentication number, no access." He began preparing

Suddenly his radio began emitting static again, he reached for it "Does anybody know how to…"

"Left, Right, Left, Right, 1, 2, 3. We use 'em all the time at the farm."

The man handed her a form, "Give that to the intake guard at the next site, and next time remember your damn authentication number."

**Lieutenant Jake "Nomad" Dunn**

"Still searching Jason Greenfield's apartment Finch."

Finch's voice came in clear through his helmet speakers, "Keep looking, none of the books you found so far match the code."

"Kitchen's clean."

"All right, it's gotta be somewhere" said their number frustrated. "Scavenger hunt."

"What?" asked Reese quizzically.

"Never played it as a kid Reese?" he asked.

Reese gave him a look. "It's a game that Jason and I used to play when we were bored, we would steel something from each other and we'd hide it in the house. Except Jason would always lose, because he always chose the same place – the heating vent."

Both he and Reese proffered their knife, he – his KA-BAR and Reese – his pocket knife. Sloan took the smaller pocket knife, looking at his KA-BAR warily. Sloan pulled the vent free and handed Reese a book inside. "Care to brush up on you history Finch? The American Revolution – a concise history."

"Why am I not surprised? Let me see. I've located a copy online, it seems to match the algorithm the code is based on."

"Great, Sloan…" Reese was cut off as a flash bang grenade flew in through the window, breaking the glass as it did. Nomad turned around, but Reese and Sloan were knocked to the floor. Nomad turned around to see two men enter through the doorway, he raised his Rifle and sent 7.62 armor piercing rounds through both their chests.

Sloan opened his eyes and looked at the two dead men and the sizzling holes in their chest, "You killed them" he said, shocked.

"And saved your life" he completed.

"I know, it's just…"

"You haven't seen someone get shot before? I get it."

"No, I haven't seen someone move that quickly before."

Reese got to his feet and helped Sloan to his, "You'll get used to it," he thought for a moment "or not."

"Mr. Reese, Lieutenant Dunn are you alright?"

"Yes, two men tried to get Sloan, we need to get out of here."

"I understand, the front entrance seems clear."

Nomad took point checking every corner until they finally reached the exit, there Nomad could see a van with the doors open. The man half sitting in the back threw himself into the van the second he saw him. His suits facial recognition software had enough time to store the image of his face – Peter Collier. Nomad and Reese brought their weapons up and unleashed a hail of fire on the van. Reese's 9mm rounds failed to penetrate the van's exterior, but several of his punched right through the van and several slumped figures in his thermal vision told him that he had managed to drop several of them before the van managed to speed away.

"Mr. Reese, Lieutenant Dunn I'm afraid I've deciphered the code, it's a plan to kill Jason Greenfield tonight."

"Greenfield, isn't he already dead?"

Sloan perked up and slowed his panting, "My brother is alive?"

Nomad bowed his head slightly, "For now Mr. Sloan, but if we don't do something about this the men who tried to abduct you will kill your brother."

**Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes**

Psycho was still above the rafters in case Root's plan went horribly wrong. The sound of a newcomer's voice caught his attention, "You can't keep moving me like this, I'm an American – I have rights!" Psycho watched as the man was shoved into a cell "Do you even know my name?" he asked.

"Jason Greenfield, I presume?" asked Root.

"How do you know my name?"

"I know a lot about you Jason. I know you hacked government sites for French group of activists, got squeamish when the group turned violent, cut a deal with the Feds in exchange for a new life. Got screwed over by them and got stuck in here."

"Who the hell are you?" Root remained silent, toying with him "Answer me!"

"We're on a bit of a clock here, so let's dispense with the temper tantrum. To answer your question, I'm like you. FBI Trojan Horse in 2009, Null Worm."

"Oh that was you? That thing infected over 7 million computers worldwide in less than a week. If you wrote the worm then you must be able to tell me how…" Root cut him off and began spouting a lot of words that he didn't really understand. He was after all just a soldier, a highly skilled soldier, but nonetheless just that.

"I'm more interested in you Jason" finished Root.

"Well Jason doesn't exist anymore. Those CIA lies faked my death. Supposedly for my protection. In return, I give them everything about the group, instead they brought me to this mobile black site. Now, they can question me forever."

"Must've gotten bad for you to reach out to people you don't trust."

"The group murdered someone. A data broker, and it's my fault. I'm the one who told Vigilance about him in the first place."

"Vigilance?"

"That's their name, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. I said we should scare the bastard, but Collier convinced the group it was time for more…aggressive action. I'm not a killer." After a period of silence "You never mentioned what you were here for."

"I'm here for you."

Psycho then watched as the prisoners were marched out of their cells and placed into a 'food delivery truck' and secured. He jumped off of his post, cloaking as he fell. He landed on the ground with barely a sound and dived into the truck, landing soundlessly. He quickly decloaked when Shaw closed the doors, "I'll be your ride-along, I'm not letting this one out of my sight."

He saw Root pulling out a key to cut her zip ties, he pulled out his F-S knife and cut her free "Miss me?"

"You wish" she said, releasing the straps holding her down. He turned to Jason Greenfield and cut him free as well. Root stepped forward and pulled off his hood.

"What are you doing?" he asked, then turning to him "Who the hell is that?! How did he get in here?"

Root turned toward him, "He's a friend" she cocked her head to one side "of a friend?"

He scoffed, "I'm touched."

"Prepare to brace yourself."

"Got a better idea, my suits got magnetic boot soles. If I hold on to the two of you, should hold just fine and should minimize whiplash."

Root smiled, "Be embraced by a strapping man like yourself?" she put on a mock cockney accent, "Why thank you sir!" she said, tapping his arm.

"Yeah, yeah, this doesn't mean we're engaged or anything" he said grabbing onto them both and activating the magnetic soles. He activated strength mode and braced himself for impact.

**Lieutenant Jake "Nomad" Dunn**

"Jester, take Mr. Greenfield to the safe house. Where's Prophet and Aztec?"

"They're following Carter, HR is onto her – they're making sure nothing happens to her. O'Neil landed a block out, it's not a far walk Mr. Sloan."

Sloan turned toward Reese and him, "Thank you, the both of you." Nomad nodded, sighing as he thought of the possibility of Jason Greenfield not getting out of this alive – no man should have to go through his brother's death twice.

"Give me the location Finch" said Reese as he watched Jester and Sloan walking away.

"Got it, an intersection downtown."

Both he and Reese got into Reese's car, "Got it, we're on our way."

They stopped the car at the specified intersection. They both stepped out and looked around. Suddenly they saw a van driving by, with Sameen Shaw in the driver's cab. "Shaw?" asked Reese as the truck drove by. His FOF tag suddenly lit up, it said that Psycho was in the back of said Van.

He smiled, "Looks like Psycho found Shaw."

Reese frowned, "Yeah, but what are they doing?" They both watched as a homeless man walked out onto the street, before pushing his cart out in front of the path of the van and pulling out an MP-5 submachinegun. The van hit the cart and careened into a parked car on the side of the street.

He saw Collier's men emerge from all over, he pulled out his rifle and turned to Reese, "We need to get to the truck, get Greenfield out of there."

He fired a burst into one of them when he saw the doors of the van get kicked open and his comlink activate "Nomad, about time you two showed up. Listen, Shaw and I will get Greenfield out of here, just keep Vigilance off our backs." He looked down and saw a SCAR-H skidding towards them.

He handed the rifle to Reese, "Psycho says from England with Love." Reese smiled as he picked up the rifle, pulled back on the charging handle and fired.

**Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes**

"Let's go Jason" said Root coming back into his field of view with a Glock 18 in her hand.

"Oi, we're not going anywhere without Shaw."

"So small minded, if we don't move now, we won't get past Vigilance."

"Reese and Nomad have that covered, you got her into this mess…"

"Alright, but hurry." He walked over to the cab and pulled the door off using the suit's strength mode. He then drew his Mk 23.

Shaw's eyes fluttered open, "I never thought I'd be glad to see your ugly face Sykes."

"Yeah, missed you too love." Shaw rolled her eyes and drew her H&K Compact .45 and walked toward where Root was. As Root began moving more Vigilance men rounded the truck, he raised his pistol and put a round in each of their chests, while Shaw and Root peppered the other three rounding the other side of the truck.

They descended the same access hatch that they had earlier and Root turned to Jason Greenfield after pulling off the grate that they had cut through earlier. It was a little hard to put back on after he had kicked it, but it had fit. "Your new identity, passcodes to a bank account with 2.5 million dollars. Go to Cartehenya, find a bar called Sol Azul on Boca Grande ask for Maurice."

"Who's he?"

"I have no idea. Now go."

"Why, why are you helping me?"

Root almost sighed as she put the grate back on, "I'm just following orders. But my guess is, you're necessary." Greenfield began walking away.

Suddenly two Vigilance men entered through the hatch, he turned and replaced part of their brains with .45 armor piercing bullets. Shaw shrugged and turned toward Root, "Mission accomplished?"

"Absolutely"

"Good," Shaw pistol whipped Root, knocking her out.

**Lieutenant Jake "Nomad" Dunn**

"I can't thank you guys enough, not just for saving me, but for saving Jason." He turned toward Nomad, "It's nice to see that there's an actual human being underneath that suit Lieutenant."

"Nice to hear that Mr. Sloan."

"They're uh, picking up Jason's stuff for auction today. I thought that I'd stop by and take one last look around."

"One for remembrance?" asked Finch. Sloan held up his hand, revealing a gold watch "Suits you, gopod luck Mr. Sloan."

His phone rang, "Hello?" he waited for the person on the other end to answer. "Jason? Where are you? I want you to know, that I have something of yours, and I'm going to hold onto it, until next time."

"Might have to keep an eye on him, Collier may try again. If Vigilance wants a revolution, these may only be the opening shots" said Reese.

"Speaking of troubling, the machine seems to have sent two teams into battle. Why keep us in the dark about Root and Shaw? Why keep Sykes from communicating?"

Reese sighed, "I don't know Finch, I really don't know."

**Till next time…**


	8. Chapter 8

**Lieutenant Jake "Nomad" Dunn**

Nomad looked through the scope of his M110 Sniper Rifle, with his M107 on his back. He knew that the most that they'd need him for would be Sniper support, if even that. That was why he had brought two, one anti-personnel and the other anti-material, with only his Mk 23 as a close range backup weapon. Again, the M107 was one of those miraculously out-of–state commercially available weapons – he really loved this country. He smiled as he watched Fusco and Reese catch up to their number.

He kept the crosshairs aimed at the chest of the their number, after all – he had given them a lot of trouble so far. Besides, with HR wanting him dead, it would not be out of the ordinary for him to receive a 7.62 round to the chest. "Nomad, we're moving, meet you in the alley out back in two" came Reese's voice clear through his radio.

"Got it Reese," he picked up his rifle, folded the bipod and slung it, jogging toward edge before throwing himself off the edge and grabbing onto a fire escape ladder to slow his fall. He then landed in front of the car, on his hands and knees before turning toward and finally walking up to the car. As he was entering he could see their number screaming. He opened the door and wished he hadn't, their number was screeching so loudly that he was wincing.

He sat inside and out of courtesy extended his hand to the man, "Lieutenant Dunn, good to finally meet you Mr. Price" The man backed up against the side of the car. "They just get weirder and weirder."

Reese sighed as he reversed the car, "Tell me about it."

"So Nomad, how you been?"

"In the ten minutes since you saw me last? I'm alright" he readjusted his rifles "not very comfortable to lean back with these things slung on your back." Fusco just shook his head. Their number sat back into his seat. Nomad sighed, he really didn't like this guy. He just wanted to get this over with. He noticed that they were not headed back to the safe house "Reese, wrong direction."

"No, it's the right direction. HR has his girlfriend, they want the ball in exchange for her life."

Nomad sighed as he pulled his M110 off of his back, "One of those situations is it?"

Reese nodded slowly, "Yeah, you could say that."

Soon they reached their location – the Auction House. They let their number out and he walked over to the group of HR police officers standing around. He watched from his post as Carter and Shaw walked over and disarmed Laskey, before Carter delivered a straight punch to his face – knocking him out. He watched as several minutes later Shaw, Reese and their number exit the building. Well, his job was done…

**Major Laurence "Prophet" Barnes**

It was a relatively quiet day for Raptor team, with Nomad being the only one who saw any action today. He had volunteered to go help Reese, it was obvious that he was enjoying this new job of theirs. Better than what they were used to, which was simply test after test. What however he couldn't shake however was this feeling that something wasn't right. They had watched over Detective Carter all of the previous day, yet something told him that their job was nowhere near done, and that the war with HR was going to get a lot more complicated.

They would be allowed to go loud against HR, after all they were under loan to the ISA – it certainly widened their options. When they were simply under JSOC, that wouldn't have been a possibility. Of course, in reality they still took orders from JSOC and they were working with The Machine and Finch against the ISA. "Major Barnes?" Prophet frowned, wondering who it was. The voice was highly synthesized, there was only one possibility – The Machine.

"Yes."

"Mission Critical, operative death imminent."

A social security number flashed in his display, followed by the person whose it was – Officer Jocelyn Carter. "Psycho, with me Officer Carter is in trouble." Psycho jumped to his feet, picking up his rifle and following him as they took the stairs to the roof. As he opened the door he saw O'Neil right in front of him.

"Whoa Prophet, what's the rush?"

"O'Neil, get the VTOL prepped, we need to move now."

"She's all fuelled and ready."

"Where is she?"

The machine responded "Transmitting coordinates." They all got into the VTOL and prepared to leave. He checked the magazine of his HK 416, full. Prophet knew that O'Neil had the coordinates as the VTOL lifted into the air. He turned toward Psycho who raised his mask.

"Boss, what's going on?"

"The Machine believes that Officer Carter is in danger, with everything going on in the past couple of days, I'm not surprised."

"HR just doesn't know when to quit, do they?" asked Psycho, checking his SCAR-H.

"No, they don't" he said as he pulled back on the charging handle of his rifle.

"Alright, here's your stop" called out O'Neil from the cockpit. The rear ramp dropped and he and Psycho engaged their cloak walking into the building. They both sprinted in, guns raised when he saw Detective Terney standing with his gun drawn on Carter and Laskey. Without a second's hesitation he raised his rifle and fired into Terney's knee, dropping him to the floor. As he was falling Terney fired backward, the round hitting Psycho in the chest and disrupting his cloak. Both of them stepped forward, now fully visible. He walked over to Carter and raised his visor, "Carter, are you alright?" out of the corner of his eye he could see Psycho walk up to Terney and kick his gun away from him.

Carter nodded "Awesome timing as always Major." He nodded ion acknowledgement.

"What are you?" he asked Psycho, a pained expression on his face.

Prophet could almost see Psycho smiling underneath his visor, "Me? I'm your worst nightmare" said Psycho before he fired his tactical attachment into him and proceeded to sling his limb body over his shoulder and walk toward where the VTOL would be parked "Oof, this one's a real fat arse" Psyche turned to Carter, "I assume you'll want to talk to this Muppet later, so I'll bring him with us."

"Finch send you?"

"It's a long story. When you're done in here, come around the back and bring your partner with you."

Laskey was still shocked, Prophet turned toward him "What's the matter, you look like you've seen a ghost."

"What…who are you?"

He turned to Carter who shrugged, signifying that it didn't matter if he knew or not. He dropped his Visor and he turned to Laskey, "They call me Prophet"

**Kind of a short chapter, but I really wanted to end with that line. Till next time…**


	9. Chapter 9

**Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes**

Psycho and Prophet both waited with their rifles at the ready in case more HR thugs came looking for Terney, who was tied and gagged in one of the seats in the VTOL with O'Neil pointing a P90 at him. They had got there in the nick of time, a moment later and who knows what would have happened. Well, it was a good thing they had a VTOL, and it was an even better thing that O'Neil had kept it fuelled and ready to take off. Of course that meant more wear and tear on the parts, but pilots who ferried Special Forces teams knew that they had to be ready to take off at a moment's notice. He could see Carter and her partner emerging from the back door of the building. Her partner was in so much trouble, and he didn't know what sort of a mood Reese and Finch were in. Personally, despite being part of HR, he had provided decent intel according to Carter – and so he believed that they should let him go.

Carter stepped onto the ramp, "Come on Laskey, stop standing around like that – you'll catch flies." Laskey, after standing and staring at the VTOL in awe for another moment, followed Carter up the ramp. Prophet now boarded and after sweeping the area one last time, he did as well, taking the seat next to Prophet.

He turned toward Laskey "Hand over the gun mate." Laskey looks shocked "I can see that Colt tucked in your trousers, now hand over the gun."

Carter nods, "Give the man your gun Laskey, you who him your damn life."

Laskey reluctantly hands him the gun, handle first "There, that wasn't so hard now, was it?"

"Who are you people?" asks Laskey

Carter sighs, "They're old army buddies of mine, except they've moved up the ladder." The statement was only partially untrue, they had served in the same region of Afghanistan, they had just never worked with each other. Of course, back then he had still been with the SAS, working with the Delta team that would eventually take and lose members and finally become Raptor team.

Psycho shrugged, "Might've been part of the team if you hadn't quit Carter."

"You know me Sykes, I'm a cop…"

Prophet finished her sentence, "always will be."

He saw Terney stirring "O'Neil, how far to the safe house mate?"

"Two minutes, Shaw, Finch and Reese are already there."

"Good to know, mate." He kicked Terney "Oi, sleeping beauty, wake your fat arse up!" Terney shook his head, obviously trying to gain some clarity after the serum in the dart knocked him out cold. Psycho looked at his recently patched up leg, he would have preferred to let the bastard bleed out, but then he and Shaw couldn't interrogate the him. He felt the VTOL touch down and watched as the ramp lowered, revealing Finch, flanked by Reese and Shaw as well as Nomad, Jester and Aztec standing behind them. Psycho grabbed Terney by the arm and pulled him to his feet. He turned toward Finch who was quite shocked, "This joker was about to shoot Carter and her…associate over there."

Finch nodded, "Major Barnes, a word if you will…The rest of you can go ahead, you too John."

Carter stepped forward, "This is your safe house? It's pretty nice Sykes, let's see if Terney has anything to tell us. Come on Laskey." He shoved Terney forward as they walked toward the stairs that led below.

Shaw cracked her knuckles, "Time for some fun. You know just what a girl wants Sykes."

"Anything for my girl," he said, chuckling. Shaw rolled her eyes. Soon they had secured Terney to a chair and he reached forward and pulled the piece of tape off of his mouth.

"You are all dead, do you have any idea what you've done? Especially you two!" he said, turning toward Laskey and Carter. "Oh when I get out of here Carter, I'm going to keep my promise earlier about your son!"

Psycho pulled out his pistol, resting the barrel against Terney's forehead, "Big mistake mate, never, involve family."

Terney scoffed, "What are you going to do, shoot me?"

Psycho shrugged and fired a round into his other knee, "Good idea mate! Now, you know how this is going to end, so let's do this clean eh?" Terney nodded, teeth gritted. "Good choice, my colleague here was just itching to get to beat it out of your dumb arse." He held his hand out for one of the photos that Laskey had taken and showed it to Terney "Now, which lovely blighter here is the head of your goddamn useless organization?"

"Simmons, Simmons is the head of HR."

He turned toward Carter who shook her head, and then he checked his suit – Terney's heart rate was accelerating. "You're lying mate, let's try this again. Who's your boss?" Simmons had a slightly pained but blank expression on his face. "I know you think your boss is pretty scary, but trust me, I'm way scarier" he said, activating strength mode and then pointing to Shaw with his thumb "And she's far more scarier than I am." He deactivated strength mode and delivered a punch to his rubs, cracking two of them.

Terney grunted and then continued moaning in pain, "I can make the other side match, unless you want to tell me what I want to know!"

"All right all right, stop. I'll tell you."

"You lie this time, it's your funeral. Albeit a really long and painful one, got it?"

"Alonzo Quinn."

"Why am I not surprised," says Carter frowning.

Psycho nods, "Alright, I can't say it's been nice knowing you, doubt anyone can." He raised his pistol and fired a single round into Terney's head. "Glad that's over."

Carter nodded slowly, "Yeah, thanks for the help Sykes."

"No problem detective."

He was about to walk away and get some sleep before Laskey spoke up, "What about me?"

But that was when Finch walked in, "We would get you a new identity, help you to disappear. I hear Los Angeles is lovely this time of year." Psycho just shook his head at Finch's sense of humor and walked to where he slept to go to sleep, it had been an interesting night indeed.

**Lieutenant Jake "Nomad" Dunn**

Both he and Reese were standing inside Carter's house. He had noticed the HR cop parked outside Carter's house and was almost tempted to shoot him, but knew that it could potentially cause more harm than good. After all Carter had already almost died had it not been for Psycho and Prophet's intervention. Of course, Carter could take care of herself. He heard the door open and someone walk in, most likely Carter.

"Tell me you didn't use the front door " asked Carter.

"I never do," said Reese.

"Wouldn't matter if I did," he said, shrugging "no one would see me do it."

"People would see you open the door Dunn" she said, exasperated.

"Where's Taylor?" asked Reese, pointing to a framed picture of Carter and Taylor.

"Somewhere safe," responded Carter uneasily.

"Any reason he wouldn't be safe here? Like your off the books pursuit of HR?"

"Everyone needs a hobby…"

"Most hobbies don't involve dirty cops staked outside your apartment. If you want, I could take care of him for you."

"I'd appreciate it if you left him alone, respectfully, I'd appreciate it if you left me alone for a while too."

Reese stepped forward, "Now's not the time to fly solo Carter."

"Don't get me wrong, John," she sighed "I appreciate everything you've done for me, and the city. But in the eyes of the law you're still a criminal and HR already knows we work together, and if they could prove it? No, I'm sorry. I gotta finish this alone."

"You forgot about us Carter, Reese may not be able to help you directly, but we can…and legally."

Carter sighed again, "Alright, fine…"

Reese nodded, "Good idea Nomad," he said as he headed for the back door "just keep her alive, I'll hold you to that." With that Reese was gone.

"What now?"

"You got a sniper rifle?"

He smiled, "Always do" he said pulling his M110 off of his back.

"Good, now I gotta make a phone call, stay right here."

"You want me to call the team?" he asked, craning his neck to see into the room that she was walking into.

"No, for now, just sit tight."

Later, he was sitting a ways back on the street that he and Carter has set up the burning SUV on. He watched as the truck transporting the Russian Drugs stopped and Carter stepped out, clad in Gas Mask and holding a Grenade Launcher. She fired a round into the cab, the Russians stepped out and she incapacitated one by pistol whipping him and forced the other one at gunpoint to lie down. Their job was done.

Nomad had to say, Carter had a way of keeping him busy. Right now they were both on the roof of a building that was overlooking the office of HR Boss Alonzo Quinn. "So, you want me to shoot up his office, make it look like the Russians, but not kill him?"

"That's exactly what I want you to do."

'Kinda hard, most Russian mob enforcers are ex-Russian Military, if we're unlucky, they're ex-Spetznatz."

"Just do what I said, you said you wanted to help right?"

"Alright, I'll do it." He waited for Carter's go and then fired, one round into his desk, another into the painting on the wall of his office and another into his desk lamp. He turned to Carter.

"That'll do, come on, let's get out of here" she said, a smile on her face.

"Where to now Carter?"

"Now we go and pay Mr. Yogarov a visit."

Another moment later they were outside the door to Yogarov's office. He had his SCAR-H in his hand, "This is a crazy idea." 

"Just let me do the talking" said Carter as she knocked on the door.

"First five guys who come through get early retirement."

"It come with a pension?" asked Carter.

Nomad watched as the door was opened to reveal Peter Yogarov standing with a shotgun in his hands "I remember you. Who's your friend in the Halloween costume?"

"He's US Special Forces, anti-terror unit, he wants to clean up the mess that is HR."

"Why should I trust him, or you?"

"Cause HR already rounded up all your boys, and right now, they're on their way here. To kill you. So if you want to live, you're coming with us."

"Last time I went with you, you arrested me."

"Guess old habits die hard" said Carter, pulling out a pair of hand cuffs.

A while later and Carter had Yogarov booked in under a false DUI charge at some remote Sheriff's station. "Look, Dunn, I appreciate the help but I got it from here. You can't exactly walk in to see the Judge with me, go back to the safe house, it's over."

He nodded, "Stay safe Carter, and good luck."

"Thanks, I'm gonna need it."

Several hours later her arrived at the safe house where Finch was working out of as well. "Lieutenant, where have you been? Did you find her?'

"She's got enough evidence to lock up all of HR and throw away the key."

"Oh, Mr. Reese just called, it seems her plan wasn't so reckless after all. Where is she now?"

"She's gone to get an arrest warrant for Alonzo Quinn."

"You let her go alone?"

"Yes?"

"Listen, if she takes this information to a HR judge then she is in grave danger!"

Nomad cursed, "Never thought about that."

"With no way to track her, we have to hope that she has the sense to call for help."

Prophet walked in, "I've sent Psycho and Jester to help Shaw. O'Neil is on station and ready to leave, just say the word.

"Just got a call from Joss, she has a plan" said Reese as he walked into the room. Over the next seven minutes Reese told them the plan, and with Finch supporting them from the safe house they boarded the VTOL and were well on their way to the potentially corrupt Judge's house. Soon they were right there and the four of them stepped out with O'Neil remaining on station for a quick extraction.

Reese and Prophet were armed with HK416s and their sidearms, he had his SCAR-H and his M110 and Aztec was armed with two P90s and an AA-12 shotgun. Nomad smiled as he noted the fact that Aztec's shotgun was loaded with FRAG-12 explosive shells. They took up positions around the French doors to the Judge's house, waiting for Finch to give them the 'go' signal.

"Now" came the voice of Finch in his helmet. Prophet and Aztec kicked the door into pieces taking point. Aztec fired several bursts into one of the HR men with his dual P90 submachine guns. Prophet fired several rounds into another HR officer's face. He fired bursts at the officers who had managed to take cover while Reese and Carter grabbed Alonzo Quinn.

"O'Neil, pickup now!" he screamed into his radio. They start backing up with he and Aztec spraying rounds into the house to make it look less like a team of special forces assaulted the house. As they stepped out through the front door Carter spoke up.

"Thanks for the help," she said, still looking forward.

"Thanks for the call," acknowledged Reese.

Just then O'Neil dropped the VTOL down in front of them and his voice came in on the radio, "Somebody call a cab?"

As they shoved Quinn in and zip tied his wrists together Carter turned to O'Neil, "Fed building downtown, and step on it."

O'Neil saluted her, "Yes ma'am" as he closed the rear boarding ramp. Just then they could hear the sirens of a police car . "Oh Lookie, more corrupt cops. Engaging, this should give them something to think about." Nomad smiled as he heard the sound of the 20mm cannon hit the car. As he walked into the cockpit he saw the car looking more like Swiss Cheese than a patrol car.

"Who the hell are you people? What's your name soldier?!"

Prophet turned toward him, "Major Barnes, United States Special Forces Squad Raptor, carrying out anti-terror operations under the ISA. You Mr. Quinn are in a lot of trouble."

"What makes you think that you can get the Fed building alive Major."

O'Neil turned around, "The fact that your men have nothing that can shoot this VTOL down?"

Quinn frowned, he knew he was well and truly beaten.

**Fusco was never captured simply because he was nowhere near Simmons or any of the other HR cops. Till next time…**


	10. Chapter 10

**Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes**

Picking up his Scotch, Psycho took another sip. Usually something he could not afford, he remembered drinking it with his Squad Leader on his last official day with the SAS, but Finch was treating them to it and that man seemed to have very deep pockets. Deep enough to buy him this glass of Scotch and the consecutive one until he was thoroughly inebriated. After all they were celebrating and technically, he was off duty, or always on duty – he didn't care anyways. Sitting in the bar at the moment was the entirety of Raptor Team, including O'Neil, Shaw, Reese, Carter, Fusco, Finch and Bear. He was sitting next to Shaw, who was affectionately petting Bear.

Finch stood up, "Normally an occasion like this would call for some Champagne, but Sergeant Sykes taste in Scotch was so impeccable that I had to try some myself."

Shaw almost spat out her drink, "Sykes, impeccable taste? That's a good one Finch…"

Finch gave Shaw a look, "I wanted to propose a toast," he said, raising his glass "to us. I have known most of you for a while, some of you are recent acquaintances. I have to say, it was been wonderful working with all of you."

Prophet then stood up, Psycho saw it fitting, both leaders proposing a toast "When we first joined this team, I was worried about working with so many unknowns. But now, I have come to respect all of you. John, man you continue to surprise me. Working with you is seamless, made me wonder if you were ever Delta, but I think we all know the answer to that. Shaw, I haven't worked with you personally much, ex-marine, ex-ISA never a dull moment with you. Mr. Finch, your skills are unparalleled, you are a natural leader. I have to say, I would sooner take orders from you than most people I have served under. Detective Carter, to the end of HR you saw your fight through, it's a good thing you remembered that when you have friends you never have to fight alone. Detective Fusco, you have no military training, and yet you continue to put yourself in dangerous situations. I think I speak for my team when I say that we look forward to tomorrow, or whenever we kick more ass!"

There was a series of cheers the erupted from all around the table. Psycho smiled and stood up "I also have a toast to make" eyes all over the table turn toward him, "to Shaw". "Beauty, grace, poise" he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his knee. He frowned and in slow motion almost reached down to feel his knee. Perhaps he was a little more inebriated than he had believed earlier.

When he looked up again he saw Reese raising his glass, "I'll drink to that." Shaw was staring daggers at Reese.

He sat back down and decided not to say anything to Shaw, he might incur her wrath, which might have undesired results. He turned toward Nomad, Aztec and Jester who were having a conversation of their own. As he did so, he noticed O'Neil somewhat calming Shaw down, his friend did have his back after all. "Man, sometimes I feel invincible with the suit, but then I remember this story about this one guy in Delta, back in the day" said Aztec.

"That guy? He's like a legend, man heard he and his partner once took out an outpost on their own!" exclaimed Jester.

"Come on guys, that's all just legend. Even being in Delta doesn't get rid of that stuff. I did hear however that he was really, really good. Like us with the suits good" said Nomad, throwing in his two cents.

The conversation seemed to catch's Reese's interest, "Oh yeah! I remember that. That was fun."

Nomad looked shocked, "That…was you?"

"I don't know if it's the scotch, but for some reason, that makes sense." Reese simply smiled.

**John Reese**

"Joss?"

Carter turned back toward him, "Yes John?"

"I have something to say."

"Please tell me you're not going to pull a Sykes on me John."

"I love you Joss."

"You…what?'

"Remember that time when we first met?" he pulled out a bullet, "Before I got into a fight with those subway thugs, I lost someone. I was thinking of saying goodbye to this world."

"What changed your mind?"

"You changed my mind Joss," he said, right before he kissed her, "and changed me."

**Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes**

The next morning Psycho woke up with the biggest hangover he had in the longest time, mainly because he could never afford to pay for the amount of alcohol he drank last night on previously. He looked beside him and shrugged, sometimes he dearly wished that there was someone there, someone to wake up to. He looked at the time on his clock, it was reasonably late sometime in the early evening. He got up and picked up his comm unit, "Evening Mr. Finch, thanks for last night. Have any work for us?"

"Not really Sergeant Sykes, but I should tell you that Mr. Reese has gone to St. Petersburg, Russia to help a number. Would you perhaps have any contacts there? He is escorting a new number, a billionaire that has had several attempts on his life so far."

"I think I may know someone, thanks Finch."

"Again, thank you Sergeant."

He ended the conversation and keyed in the number to a satellite phone he thought that he would never need. The line rang for a minute until a strongly accented voice picked up "Da."

"Vasily, Vasily Beloi? Its Michael, Michael Sykes."

"Sykes! Ah my friend, what can I do for you?"

"It's not so much what you can do for me, but what you can do for a friend of mine. You see, he's just landed in St. Petersburg."

"And you want me to show him good time? Da, is very possible."

"No Vaz, he needs help with something, just…I'm giving you his details, just help him in any way you can, understand?"

"Of course, we'll get our weapons. Tell me Sykes, how are you enjoying suit?"

"I take it the Mikoyan Research Bureau knows about Anton Vanko?"

"Of course we knew, we let him go. Of course, that was slight oversight on my superiors part, but our countries are not enemies any more eh? It's all okay, it's like when grandfather talked about fighting Nazi's alongside the Americans and the British. Anyway, have to go, have to wake up team. Talk to you later friend!" Psycho cut the line, if one didn't get straight to business with that one, he would talk your bloody ears off. Well, he was Reese's problem now.

**Captain Vasily "Volk (Wolf) " Beloi**

**A/N: These are my OCs, they might take part in this story when things happen out of country or maybe never. I just loved the idea of a Spetznatz soldier owing Psycho a couple of favors and of course, just to illustrate that if in Crysis, the damn North Koreans had their own suits, then the Russians certainly did as well.**

Vasily put his suit on and moved around the arms room of the army barracks that they were stationed in. In Russia, being part of the Special Operations Brigade, it meant he could go anywhere and do whatever he pleased, as long as in the end his superiors approved. He was sure that they would not mind him and his men moving into the central areas to 'apprehend' an American. Sykes had told him about his problem, and he was more than willing to oblige.

He felt bad for Sykes, word was that the American 'Nanosuit' was made from alien tissue, he would never trust that nonsense. What he was wearing was one hundred percent human ingenuity. He tapped his chest plate with his knuckles as he bent to pick up his AS VAL with a PSO-1 scope attached to the top. He watched as Viktor 'Ozhog (Scorch)' Abramov moved to pick up a RPG-16. He put his hand on the weapon and shook his head, sternly reprimanding his team member in Russian, "Viktor, we don't need any explosions tonight."

As the rest of his team collected their weapons he looked at the suit he was wearing and the helmet in his hands. It looked like the American Nanosuit, but with more plating, less joint flexibility and instead of single visor, it had three 'Sam Fisher' style goggle like things. It looked like shit, but it got the job done. Just like the VTOL in front of him, some may say it looked like whale, but it got the job done. The Mi-42 Akula, was the newest in Russian Engineering, a result from the rapid research the Americans and the North Koreans were doing in VTOL aircraft.

**Link to picture of Dropship: **

** : / / . / P R E / f / / 0 3 1 / d / 6 / – . j p g**

Soon they had reached where Sykes had said that his friend would be and indeed there was some thugs threatening what looked to be some spoiled rich brat. He got on the comm unit to his pilot "Yastreb ( Hawk), drop us here. Koush (Deadeye), stay with Yastreb, we will handle this." He smiled to himself, this was easy, a milk run, but any excuse to get out and stretch their legs was good enough, maybe they could go and get Piroshky later, it had been a while since he had eaten good Piroshky.

As he stepped out of the cloaked VTOL he decloaked and walked toward the two thugs who instantly let go of the man they were holding and took several steps back, they knew exactly who he was. He pulled out his AS VAL and aimed it in their direction, his team mates doing the same. He called out in Russian, "Hands on your head, now!" They did so and in several short moments he was sending the three of them to the nearest police station by way of a two Police Cars. After thanking him, the police left leaving him alone with the man.

"Why did you help me?" he asked in perfect Russian.

"I speak English just fine, and no, I will not answer your question." The man raised his eyebrows and nodded. He could see a man in a suit approaching.

"You are John Wiley? Friend of Michael Sykes?"

"Yes, and you are?"

"Captain Vasily Beloi, this your man?"

"Yes, are we free to go?"

"Whenever you want to, but any friend of Sergeant Sykes is a friend of mine, do you like Piroshky?" Vasily noticed that the man was smiling.

"Deal."

**Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes**

After calling Vasily, a call to a certain someone who was special in his life was in order. Granted that it was the next day, and that he had put her last in the list of his priorities for the day. He knew that he said some potentially…problematic things that night, and for the life of him he couldn't remember exactly _what _he said. In any case, he had to call her sooner or later and sort out whatever sort of mess he had created. After all he hadn't spoken to her the next day "Shaw, how is my favorite ex-ISA assassin today?"

"What do you want Sykes, we're busy."

"New number, already?"

"Yeah, it's not like people wait a day before committing a crime."

"Reese back yet?"

"No, he's back on today's flight with our number. In case someone else tried something in his Private Jet. They got a complimentary upgrade to First Class, who did you say your friend was?"

"I didn't, but he knows someone, who knows someone. That's how things work in" he put on a faux Russian accent "the motherland!"

"I'm starting to regret this conversation."

"I might have said some stupid things as well, so we're even."

"Is that what your little speech was?"

"Oh dear, you remember?"

"Couldn't forget if I tried, and believe me, I did."

"Did I say something horrible?"

"Well, no, not really."

"Oh! Something nice then?"

"Let's just say that I'd be willing to suffer an evening with you. Also, it's not a date or anything, so don't get any damn ideas. Just two colleagues meeting for…whatever, I've got to go now. Our number has a grieving wife that I've got to get information from."

"That's the most you've spoke to me, I'm touched." The line abruptly went dead, he shrugged.

His com line beeped again, "Sergeant Sykes, what happened to Major Barnes?"

"Prophet and Nomad are reporting in to JSOC, they've gone comm silent. Why?"

"We're heading to the safe house with our number, but something seems wrong."

"Copy that, we'll be there." Psycho walked up to their arms room and grabbed his weapons, trading out his M110 Sniper Rifle for dual P90s. He began walking toward the roof when Jester stopped him.

"Psycho, where you going man?"

"Finch wants us at the safe house, something's not right with their new number."

"I'm coming with you."

"Alright, where's Aztec?"

"He's going to meet his cousin, she just graduated from the police academy, top of her class."

"Right, just you and me then mate, let's get moving."

In a short while they were at the safe house and were taking the stairs down onto the floor on which the safe house was located. He was scanning the corridors with his two P90s and Jester with his AA12 shotgun. That was when he saw two agents standing outside the front door to the safe house. It was obvious which three letter agency they were from – the ISA. Their suits, with the help of the machine, automatically began disabling all recording devices that had a line of sight with them. He nodded to Jester, who slung his shotgun and pulled out his Mk 23 SOCOM pistol. They both fired once, dropping both agents.

That was when he got the shock of his life, he saw Root standing outside the door. They would have to cooperate with her for now. He walked up to her and signed to her whether she knew where they were. She nodded, they both raised their weapons and he told signed her to target the agent on the left, and signed Jester to target the one on the right, while he got the one in the center. He counted down on his hand before the three of them fired.

They kicked in the door and systematically began removing all threats. "Mr. Finch, let's move."

"I told you Harold, we were supposed to work together" said Root as she scanned the room with her dual pistols. He put away one of his P90s before unsheathing his knife and cutting Shaw free. Then handing her his Mk 23.

"O'Neil, we're heading up, five minutes tops." They scanned the corridors as they exited the room. Just then he saw that ISA agent who had tried to kill Shaw and he unleashed such a hail of fire that he was forced to dive behind cover. They could fake a diversionary assault and claim to not be responsible, but killing an agent, that would be harder to lie about. They ran up the fire stairs until they made it to the roof where the VTOL was waiting.

As soon as they were on board he aimed one of his P90s at Root, "Give me one reason I shouldn't blow your brains out."

"Like I told Harold, we should really be working together."

"I suppose the Machine agrees, given that you've managed to 'escape'."

Root smiled, "You should really not go against her wishes, I know what she can do to you."

He knew what she meant, "Careful now, I'm just as scary without the suit."

Finch had enough "Stop, the both of you!"

Their number was smiling ear to ear and looking straight at them, "And I thought I would never see the day!"

"Uh…what?" asked Jester.

"Your suits, they're real!"

"Of course they are, that's some gratitude old man."

Finch nodded, "I believe Arthur's time in the NSA had something to do with your suits."

"It was a perfect platform for Samaritan, the perfect soldier. Intel, orders, the suit could be used as a mobile platform!" Psycho knew what he meant, after all the machine was doing something similar, but what the devil was Samaritan? No doubt some sort of AI.

"Which is why we need that backup, did you make a backup?"

"Harold did you disable the alarm, otherwise Nathan is gonna get, well, expelled!"

Shaw frowned, "Nathan?"

"His mind has slipped back to 1981, to MIT. Our friend convinced us to do hack, A prank at the Harvard – Yale, everything will be fine Arthur. It was sort of an anti-nuclear proliferation statement and "

"To impress certain ladies."

Shaw smiled, "A rebel and a skirt chaser."

"No, no, Harold doesn't need to chase. He's got this certain gravitational pull with the female population."

"You know, I think that Nathan should be here by now."

"Arthur, Nathan isn't coming. You've drifted away"

"Nathan, he's dead isn't he?"

"Arthur, what Control said, now I need you to think very hard, is it true? Did you make a backup?"

Shaw shook her head, "Save it Harold, he's closed for business."

"Of course I made a backup, it's just that that woman seemed quite dangerous so, I played the tumor card. It was a ruse, remembering to forget."

"Your growing on me Arthur" said Shaw, smiling.

"Who are you?"

Shaw's smile faded, "Never mind."

"Arthur, we need that backup. Even if it's broken, Samaritan is our best chance to ensure your safety. Can you remember where it is?"

Arthur shrugged, "Yeah, it's with a dear friend of ours."

Soon enough their friend had led them to bank and he and Jester stepped in as well, cloaked. He and Shaw were watching the entrance, while Jester had gone with Arthur, Finch and Root. Although they seemed to have a problem, Vigilance was here and a lot sooner than they had expected, at least they were frying the cameras for him. Collier fired his shotgun into the air, "Everybody down on the ground! Right now!"

He and Shaw managed to sneak around to behind the tellers' desks. When they noticed that Law Enforcement had arrived. "Cavalry has arrived," said Shaw, but he noticed a particular Agent with then.

"Oi, take a look at that guy, familiar?"

Shaw got on the comm to Finch, "Its Hersh, get out of there!" He and Shaw continued to monitor them. And noticed that one of his men was heading to the vault, "Finch, get out of there now!"

**Sergeant Martin "Jester" Hawker**

Jester decloaked, "Contact front! Root, get them to the damn safety deposit box. I'll make sure these assholes don't get in!" He pulled out his AA-12, he had loaded the current magazine with slugs and he had another drum with FRAG-12, Flechette and two more with buckshot. He fired one round straight through the door and right through the Vigilance operative's head.

"Hey Root, got that damn box open yet?"

"Not yet soldier boy, calm down."

"It's just that our opportunities to exit clean diminish by the minute."

He heard Finch over the shared radio, "Miss Shaw, what's our situation."

"Not good Finch, there's a lot of guys here. We could take out Vigilance, but they're the only ones keeping Hersh out. Now we could both take out an ISA TAC team, but that could cause more problems than its worth."

"I urge you both to think what Lieutenant Dunn or Mr. Reese would do."

"Rude" came Shaw's reply over the radio.

"As you said Miss Shaw you're a hammer, and this situation requires a scalpel."

"Well I got finesse coming out of my ass Harold, just ask Sykes." Jester smiled as he remembered Psycho's toast that night. A moment later he noticed several Vigilance operative coming through and he opened fire, forcing all but one of them to dive behind cover.

"Root, we need to move! Shaw, you and Sykes get to damn the roof, now!" He noticed Root, Finch and Shaw moving out of the corner of his eye and continued opening fire until they passed, then moved to join them. They made it to the Fire Escape Stairwell and were joined by Shaw and Psycho a moment later. "Nice of the two of you to join us, O'Neil, pickup, roof!"

They made their way to the roof were O'Neil was waiting for them, hovering a meter off of it. The extended rear ramp was the only part of the VTOL touching the roof. The seven of them bounded off the ramp and into the cabin. Psycho turned to Finch, "You get it?"

"Yes, we did."

Psycho nodded, looked at Arthur "Sorry mate."

"Why?" Psycho grabbed the drives out of his hand, his suit flashed red and crushed them in his hand, letting the destroyed remains fall to the floor.

"Because I, for one, don't want to have to face down what happens if this damn thing became active."

Root smiled, "There's only room for one god."

**Till next time…**


	11. Chapter 11

**Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes**

Psycho was thinking about what had happened with the ISA, they had enough problems to deal with, they didn't need to deal with this now. He could remember the conversation they had with Nomad and Prophet, barely three hours ago. The two of them had received the report from General Redrish, and he was not happy. Apparently the head of the ISA herself had written a formal complaint regarding Raptor team's aiding and abetting of ISA targets. However, upon discovering that the head of the ISA was operating outside of protocol, including searching for the Machine, Raptor Team was authorized to detain any and all ISA personnel not acting in accordance with protocol and they were told to continue their current mission.

Psycho sighed as he remembered the tense conversation with Nomad and Prophet. As far as things went however it was not as bad as they could have gone. Additionally, they were now authorized to wear their suits in public, Crynet had officially released the Nanosuit 1.5. Jacob Hargreave had called Prophet himself personally to thank him and the rest of Raptor for testing the suit, and had told him that they had solved a "Major Flaw" with suit-user interaction. The upgrade was a software patch and right now he was watching as his suit finished downloading and installing the said patch.

They were supposed to meet Finch, John and Reese as the HR case was finally closed. It was also to be the last day before Reese and Carter went on their joint break, arranged by Finch. He was honestly happy for them, after all, they were perfect for each other. A beep that came from his suit's systems signified that the update was complete. He racked the slide back on his Mk 23 as he set it on the table next to his 'bed' and began to don his Nanosuit. Something about the suit felt different, not that he could quite make it out, but still different.

Putting his MK 23 in his holster and grabbing a P90 and his SCAR-H he headed toward the roof where O'Neil was waiting for them. "Been a strange week, hasn't it?" asked O'Neil as he stepped into the VTOL.

"You're telling me mate," he said taking a seat nearest to the cockpit.

"You heard what Prophet said? They want us to be taking the forefront, apparently these privacy terrorists have people concerned about government surveillance systems. They want people to be thinking of Nanosuit equipped anti-terror units, not the system that gives us the targets. Ironic isn't it?"

"Irony? It's second nature for guys like us O'Neil."

"I know, well, at least Reese and Carter are getting a taste of normalcy."

"Oi, did you forget about my plans tomorrow night?"

"What plans? Oh, your Shaw plans! Right, completely forgot about those. Thought you were bullshitting when you said that."

"No, I've got a date too…What did she say? 'I'd be able to stomach an evening with you.' She's totally into me."

O'Neil just shook his head dismissively. The sound of footsteps on the ramp caught his attention, he turned to see Prophet, Nomad, Jester and Aztec take their seats. It was time. The VTOL lifted into the air slowly, the cargo ramp closing behind them. Minutes of flying later the VTOL landed near the precinct, he could see Finch talking to Carter as they walked up toward them. "How else would you know when people are in trouble?"

"I'm impressed."

"Well, I am a detective. I'll stop by the third to see that John gets out, we do have a flight to catch."

As they walked by, not even one member of the crowed of civilians even batted an eyelid, it's was amazing what people conceived as normal these days. "I wanted to say thanks, just one more time for saving my ass, twice. Really, I couldn't have done it without you guys, are you sticking around?"

Nomad nodded "We thought you might look more official with a Delta Force entourage Detective. It is Detective again right?"

"Like I told Finch, I can't say I'll miss the uniform."

Soon enough they followed Carter to the third precinct where they waited outside for her to return with Reese. As he stepped out he raised an eyebrow, "Well this is new, aren't you worried people will see you gentlemen?"

"With Vigilance spreading fear about a government surveillance system, JSOC thought giving people something else to thing about would be a decent idea, especially since the suits featured in a Crynet shareholders presentation."

Reese nodded, "Nobody seems to care."

He smiled, "Gotta love New York, mate."

"You all packed John? We still have flight to catch."

Suddenly a payphone nearby began to ring, and a number scrolled by their visor until the suit checked the social security database and matched it to – oh bloody hell, the suit had matched it to Detective Jocelyn Carter. "Boss?" he asked over the COM.

"I know, Raptor, take up defensive positions, now!" Raptor team snapped into motion, forming a circle around Reese and Carter, weapons raised. Psycho scanned the immediate area and found one face that was oddly familiar, attempting to leave the area all of a sudden. "I've got eyes on him boss, moving in!" he sprinted after the target, round the corner of the precinct before he felt a bullet slam into his helmet. He turned to see a very terrified Officer Patrick Simmons, gun raised and making to fire another shot.

"Biggest mistake of your life." Simmons fired another shot, and another and then a third.

"Who…what are you!?" he asked, lowering the gun realizing the futility of his actions.

"Me? I'm your worst nightmare" he said, raising his first and knocking him out cold. He flipped him over, zip tying his wrists together and dragging him back, "Looks like you missed one Carter."

Carter smiled, "Looks like I did," she said before turning toward Reese "Looks like I did."

**Just a short little teaser, before I decide to do something with another Episode. Till next time…**


End file.
